#70 dead 900 injured

[sonknuxadow]

"we need more mean women" you guys cant even handle lanolin the sheep

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Hacker gained access to 100 million Capital One credit card applications and accounts (CNN) In one of the biggest-ever data breaches, a hacker gained access to more than 100 million Capital One customers’ accounts and credit card applications earlier this year. Paige Thompson is accused of breaking into a Capital One server and gaining access to 140,000 Social Security numbers, 1 million Canadian Social Insurance numbers and 80,000 bank account numbers, in addition to an undisclosed number of people’s names, addresses, credit scores, credit limits, balances, and other information.

On Costliest U.S. Warship Ever, Navy Can’t Get Munitions on Deck (Bloomberg) Only two of 11 elevators needed to lift munitions to the deck of the U.S. Navy’s new $13 billion aircraft carrier have been installed, according to a Navy veteran who serves on a key House committee. “I don’t see an end in sight right now” to getting all the elevators working on the USS Gerald R. Ford, the costliest warship ever, Democratic Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia said in an interview. The shakedown phase has been extended to October and the vessel won’t have all the elevators installed--much less functioning--by then, according to Luria, a 20-year Navy surface warfare officer whose served on two aircraft carriers and as shore maintenance coordinator for a third. “Essentially, the ship can’t deploy,” Luria said. “It can’t carry ammunition.”

Senate fails to overturn Saudi arms sale veto (BBC) The US Senate has failed in its latest bid to block the controversial sale of $8.1bn (£6.5bn) worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. It fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn President Donald Trump’s veto, used to override resolutions passed by both chambers of Congress preventing the sale. Critics fear the weapons may be used on civilians in the Yemen conflict. Mr Trump argued that blocking the sale would weaken US global competitiveness.

Over 900 Children Separated at U.S. Border Since Policy Halted: ACLU (Reuters) The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday asked a federal judge to stop the Trump administration’s ongoing separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying the government had taken more than 900 children from their parents since the policy officially ended last year.

It’s official: UK broke temperature record during heat wave (AP) Britain has officially had its hottest day on record. Weather agency the Met Office says the temperature reached 38.7 C (101.7 F) at Cambridge University Botanic Garden in eastern England during last week’s heat wave. The previous U.K. record was 38.5 C (101.3 F), set in August 2003. Temperature records fell across Europe last week as a suffocating heat wave swept up from the Sahara.

Greek Lawmakers Vote to Ease Some Taxes From Bailout Era (AP) Lawmakers in Greece have approved measures to ease bailout-era taxes nearly a year after the country ended its final rescue program, but most of the taxes imposed during the crisis will remain in effect.

Blast in Pakistani city Quetta kills five: police (Reuters) Five people including two policemen were killed and 27 injured in a blast near a police station in southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Tuesday evening, a week after a similar blast that killed two people, police said.

Sri Lanka Gives Free Visa to Boost Tourism After Bomb Blasts (AP) Sri Lanka says it will give one-month free visa on arrival to visitors from nearly 50 countries in its latest effort to revive the island nation’s lucrative tourism industry that was badly hit by the Easter bomb attacks.

Iran to Reduce Nuclear Deal Commitments More Unless Europe Protects It: Zarif (Reuters) Iran is set to further cut its commitments to its international nuclear deal unless its European partners move to protect it from U.S. sanctions by ensuring it can sell oil and receive income, its foreign minister told state television on Wednesday.

Bangladesh Grapples With Country’s Worst Dengue Outbreak (AP) Bangladesh is facing its worst-ever dengue fever outbreak as hospitals are flooded with patients, putting a severe strain on the country’s poor emergency services.

A drug-resistant strain of malaria is making the disease ‘almost untreatable’ in southeast Asia (Washington Post) Two recent studies have found that the presence of drug-resistant strains of malaria is on the rise in southeast Asia. The research has provoked alarm among scientists who are leading the fight against one of the world’s most stubborn health problems. The disease is “getting close to being untreatable,” said Arjen Dondorp a lead author of one the studies and the head of malaria research at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Thailand.

Top diplomats gather in Bangkok for key Asia-Pacific talks (AP) Top diplomats from the Asia-Pacific region started gathering Tuesday in the Thai capital to discuss issues of concern to the area, including security on the Korean peninsula and China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. The meetings in Bangkok are hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, chaired this year by Thailand. Thai officials say there will be 27 meetings in all through Saturday, and 31 countries and alliances will participate.

North Korea Tests More Missiles Despite Efforts at Diplomatic Solutions (Reuters) North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles early on Wednesday, the South Korean military said, only days after it launched two similar missiles intended to pressure South Korea and the United States to stop upcoming military drills.

White House Eyeing Chinese Forces Gathered on Hong Kong Border (Bloomberg) The White House is monitoring what a senior administration official called a congregation of Chinese forces on Hong Kong’s border. Weeks of unrest in the Chinese territory have begun to overwhelm Hong Kong’s police, who have found themselves in violent clashes with protesters. China warned Monday that the civil disorder had gone “far beyond” peaceful protest after police deployed tear gas over the weekend. The nature of the Chinese buildup wasn’t clear; the official said that units of the Chinese military or armed police had gathered at the border with Hong Kong. The official briefed reporters on condition he not be identified.

China celebrates ‘very happy lives’ in Xinjiang, after detaining 1 million Uighurs (Washington Post) The Chinese government Tuesday declared its campaign of control and repression in the majority-Muslim region of Xinjiang to be a resounding success, claiming that almost all those detained in internment camps had been released and were now “living very happy lives.” Signaling the start of a new phase in Xinjiang, officials quoted reams of figures to support their claims that life in Xinjiang had improved remarkably under 70 years of Communist rule and that the government’s “deradicalization” campaign had been effective. The government’s portrayal of the situation in Xinjiang differs sharply from firsthand accounts of life there.

China to Halt Individual Taiwan Tourism Permits for 47 Mainland Cities (Reuters) China will stop issuing individual travel permits for Taiwan to people in 47 mainland cities from Aug. 1, its culture and tourism ministry said on Wednesday, citing the state of ties with the self-ruled island, but gave no details.

Israel Approves New Homes for Settlers, Palestinians in West Bank (Reuters) Israel has approved the construction of 6,000 new homes for Jewish settlers and 700 new homes for Palestinians in an area of the occupied West Bank where it has full control, an Israeli official said on Wednesday.

Suspected Boko Haram fighters kill 65 in attack on funeral in Nigeria (Washington Post) Villagers were walking home from a funeral in northeast Nigeria this weekend when gunmen on motorbikes surrounded them in a graveyard and opened fire. The attack bearing the hallmarks of terrorist group Boko Haram left at least 65 people dead, authorities said Monday, as residents urged the military to ramp up protection in a region gripped by extremist violence.

South Africa says unemployment at highest level in a decade (AP) South Africa says unemployment has reached its highest level in a decade at 29%. It is the latest grim report for Africa’s most developed economy, which in May announced that growth had dropped by the most in a decade during the first quarter. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration is under public pressure to turn around the economy and clean up corruption. That dissatisfaction led to the worst election showing in 25 years for Ramaphosa’s ruling African National Congress in May.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/live-coronavirus-pandemic-global-updates/

Live Coronavirus Pandemic Global Updates

E.U. proposes stimulus package worth €750 billion.

The European Union’s executive arm said on Wednesday that it wanted to issue bonds in capital markets to raise 750 billion euros, or $860 billion, to finance the bloc’s economic recovery, a leap toward closer European integration seen as divisive by some, but necessary by most.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, laid out the details of the proposed recovery package for its 27 member economies, especially those hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, before the European Parliament in Brussels. “Our unique model built over 70 years is being challenged like never before in our lifetime,” she said.

The fund will distribute €500 billion worth of grants — free money that will not be added to national debt — to all 27 member states, with Italy getting the largest slice, followed by Spain.

This is a crucial element of the recovery effort, which was opposed by some of the bloc’s wealthier nations like the Netherlands and Sweden, but supported by both Germany and France. Lengthy and fraught negotiations lie ahead, as the proposal requires unanimous support by all nations, a Dutch diplomat said on Wednesday shortly after the proposal was introduced.

Europe’s recovery effort will be difficult and expensive, as some of its economies are set to shrink as much as 10 percent this year. Germany and other wealthy countries have their own funds available to spend immediately to prop up their economies, but poorer European Union members need help.

The European Central Bank has been doing the heavy lifting in the early recovery response, buying member states’ bonds itself to ensure that borrowing costs remain low and that funds continue to flow to injured economies.

European countries will also be able to apply for loans from a €250 billion fund, but that money will come with conditions and will count toward debt loads. The loans will also require a cumbersome approval process, and are unlikely to be swiftly available.

Japan made similar moves on Wednesday as its cabinet approved more than a trillion dollars in stimulus funds, including a combination of subsidies to companies and people. The Parliament is expected to approve the measure next month.

Japan’s proposal follows a raft of measures that the country passed in April. Taken together, the two packages would be equivalent to 40 percent of Japan’s economic output, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters on Wednesday.

France is no longer allowing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment.

France on Wednesday revoked the authorization allowing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 patients, a day after halting the use of the malaria drug in clinical trials. Both steps come on the back of moves by the World Health Organization to temporarily remove the drug from global trials over safety concerns.

In France, the drug was promoted as a miracle cure by a maverick infectious diseases specialist based in Marseille, Didier Raoult, who rose to prominence by conducting several questionable experiments that he said had proved the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in combating the virus.

France had authorized limited use of the drug on patients in serious condition and had included it in several clinical trials. But now the country has joined the ranks of others moving away from the use of the drug, even after several prominent figures, including President Trump, have promoted it.

The president of El Salvador on Tuesday said that he is taking the drug in hopes of warding off the coronavirus.

“I use it as a prophylaxis, President Trump uses it as a prophylaxis, most of the world’s leaders use it as a prophylaxis,” Reuters quoted the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, as saying on Tuesday. (In fact, few if any other world leaders have said they take the drug.)

Mr. Bukele told reporters on Tuesday that his government was no longer promoting the drug as a treatment, following the W.H.O.’s advice, but that patients could still take it as a preventive treatment. El Salvador has just over 2,000 confirmed cases of the virus.

“There is still no scientific evidence, but it is being monitored and used in Brazil and worldwide,” Mr. Bolsonaro said on his official Facebook page, The Associated Press reported. “We are at war: ‘Worse than being defeated is the shame of not having fought.’”

Mr. Khanna is a Michelin-starred chef who was born in India and came to New York City as an aspiring chef 20 years ago, initially working as a dishwasher and delivery man. As the pandemic hit his home country, he watched the news and grew despondent.

“We’ve totally failed our people,” he said in an interview last week, referring to the millions of people in India who are unemployed and desperately hungry. “I wanted to show that solidarity still exists.”

Mr. Khanna posted an emotional appeal on Twitter in early April, asking people to send him details of those who were desperate for food. Within hours, he was flooded with replies.

But it wasn’t as easy to reach the hungry. His first attempt to deliver food, to an elder-care home in southern India, fell apart when the deliverer disappeared with more than 2,000 pounds of rice and nearly 900 pounds of lentils.

Absent from public view for more than a week amid rumors that he had been rushed to Moscow for emergency coronavirus treatment, Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, has reappeared in the capital of his Caucasus region — alive but apparently unwell.

A video posted on social media on Tuesday showed Mr. Kadyrov meeting in Grozny, the Chechen capital, with officials involved in fighting the pandemic, calming speculation that the Chechen leader, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin, was dying or even dead.

But with Mr. Kadyrov looking pale, acting far less boisterous than usual and wearing what looked like a cannula, a medical tube that can be used to administer intravenous fluids, on his right hand, the video only added to uncertainty about the state of his health.

The video, filmed and posted on Instagram by Chechnya’s official television channel, was later deleted. A separate video of the same meeting, pruned of footage showing Mr. Kadyrov’s right hand, appeared on Wednesday on an unofficial Instagram account used by the Chechen leader.

Mr. Kadyrov, who has repeatedly threatened journalists and acquired a fearsome reputation for brutality, was expelled from Instagram this month by Facebook, which said it had blocked his accounts in order to comply with United States sanctions. But he has active stayed on social media under various false names.

Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, back at work in the Kremlin after recovering from the coronavirus himself, said on Wednesday said he could not say anything about Mr. Kadyrov or his condition. Two Kremlin-controlled news agencies reported last week that Mr. Kadyrov had flown from Grozny to Moscow for hospital treatment.

But officials in Chechnya had denied that Mr. Kadyrov was ill and undergoing treatment in Moscow, with one suggesting that the Chechen leader had taken a low profile simply because he was “thinking.”

Mr. Kadyrov imposed a tough lockdown on his region at the start of the pandemic, denouncing residents who violated health orders as “worse than terrorists” who should be “buried in a hole in the ground.”

The region, according to official figures compiled by the authorities in Moscow, has reported 698 coronavirus cases and 13 deaths, compared with 4,161 infections and 130 deaths in the neighboring region of Dagestan.

Ten days of national mourning for the victims of the coronavirus began on Wednesday in Spain, the longest official mourning period in the country’s modern history.

The government and the royal family led a nationwide minute of silence at noon, and flags were lowered to half-staff on all public buildings. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the moment was a time for the country to show its collective sorrow and to honor the tens of thousands who died from the virus.

The major cities of Madrid and Barcelona on Monday caught up with the rest of the country in easing lockdown measures that had been gradually rolled out for weeks, and Mr. Sánchez said he had waited to start the official mourning period until the whole country had entered the first phase of returning to public life.

The extended lockdown has exacerbated political tensions over the government’s handling of the epidemic. The military police opened an investigation into the government’s decision to allow some 120,000 people to gather in Madrid for International Women’s Day on March 8, just a week before Spain declared a state of emergency.

On Monday, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Spain’s interior minister, fired the head of the military police in Madrid for not informing the government about the investigation. To protest the government’s decision, another senior police official resigned on Tuesday. Speaking in Congress on Wednesday, the leader of the main opposition party called for Mr. Grande-Marlaska to resign for mistreating Spain’s police.

For much of the last two months, Paris has been empty — its shops and cafes shuttered, its streets deserted, its millions of tourists gone.

Freed of people, the urban landscape has evoked an older Paris. In particular, it has called up the singular Paris of Eugène Atget, an early 20th-century father of modern photography, in his unsentimental focus on detail.

In thousands of pictures, Atget shot an empty city, getting up early each morning and lugging his primitive equipment throughout the streets. His images reduced Paris to its architectural essence.

A Times photographer, Mauricio Lima, has followed in Atget’s footsteps, shooting images of the same scenes his famous predecessor captured. But those streets are now deserted because of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Lima’s recreations offer new insight into Atget’s work — and into the meaning of a city unique in its beauty but also in its coldness.

The critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin famously invoked crime scenes in discussing Atget’s photographs. He was pointing to their emptiness, their clinical attention to details of the urban landscape, their absolute rejection of the sentimental and the grandiose.

As Benjamin observed, Atget established a beneficial “distance between man and his environment.” And Mr. Lima’s haunting updated recreations confirm the long-dead photographer’s disquieting insight: Paris doesn’t care about your presence. It is indifferent, and it will certainly go on without you.

As countries across the Asia-Pacific region gradually open up after months of lockdowns, officials are struggling to strike that elusive balance between getting people back to work and keeping the virus at bay.

Economists and business leaders in China began warning in February that lockdowns and other stringent measures were hurting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people — all while contributing little to the containment effort. But when China eventually loosened its lockdowns, new pockets of infection cropped up, prompting the authorities in the northeastern province of Jilin to impose a Wuhan-style lockdown.

Similar tensions, backsliding and calls for compromise are now playing out elsewhere in the region.

In Indonesia, for example, which has 23,000 confirmed cases and counting, President Joko Widodo is concerned that the economic losses pose as much of a threat to the public as the virus. On Wednesday, he outlined plans for what he calls a “new normal” protocol meant to slow the coronavirus while reviving the economy. He called for deploying troops and police officers across hard-hit parts of the country to help enforce containment measures.

In Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory, the authorities have adopted a “suppress and lift” strategy to alternately tighten and relax measures as transmissions surge and wane. Civil servants, for instance, were ordered to work from home in March — for the second time — after the city saw a new wave of imported cases. They’re now back in the office.

And the authorities in South Korea have been easing social-distancing restrictions and reopening schools after successfully reducing what had been one of the largest outbreaks outside China to a trickle.

Still, the country reported 40 new cases on Wednesday, amid fears that an outbreak that started in nightclubs in Seoul early this month was infecting people elsewhere. The new patients in recent days include 11 cases linked to a duck restaurant in Seoul, and 36 linked to a home-delivery logistics center south of the city.

The Swiss government said on Wednesday that public and private events of up to 300 people and spontaneous gatherings of up to 30 people would be allowed again from June 6.

The government is to decide on June 24 whether to also lift a ban on events with up to 1,000 people, though larger gatherings will not be permitted before the end of August at the earliest.

About a dozen U.S. states are seeing an uptick in new virus cases, bucking the national trend of staying steady or seeing decreases. At least half of the states seeing more infections were part of an early wave of reopenings in late April and early May, among them Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.

New coronavirus cases have also continued to rise in North Carolina, where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held in August. President Trump threatened on Monday to move the convention unless Gov. Roy Cooper provided a “guarantee” that there would be no virus-related restrictions on the size of the event. Mr. Cooper, a Democrat, refused to do so on Tuesday.

The new numbers could reflect increased testing capacity in some places, though they also indicate that the virus’s grip on the country is far from over.

“It’s like nothing had happened,” Mr. Chan said in an interview. “I’m dumbfounded. How could they make a U-turn so fast?”

Mr. Chan wrote “The Fat Years” as a cautionary tale. Today, it seems all too real. A disaster brings suffering and death. Collective amnesia sets in. The Communist Party emerges stronger than ever.

How could people forget so easily? Of course, the Communist Party controls the media and history. As George Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

At the height of China’s coronavirus outbreak, officials made quick use of the fancy tracking devices in everybody’s pockets — their smartphones — to identify and isolate people who might be spreading the illness.

Months later, China’s official statistics suggest that the worst of the epidemic has passed there, but the government’s monitoring apps are hardly fading into obsolescence. Instead, they are tiptoeing toward becoming a permanent fixture of everyday life, one with potential to be used in troubling and invasive ways.

Zhou Jiangyong, the Communist Party secretary of the eastern tech hub of Hangzhou, said this month that the city’s app should be an “intimate health guardian” for residents, one that is used often and “loved so much that you cannot bear to part with it,” according to an official announcement.

While the technology has doubtless helped many workers and employers get back to their lives, it has also prompted concern in China, where people are increasingly protective of their digital privacy. Companies and government agencies in China have a mixed record on keeping personal information safe from hacks and leaks. The authorities have also taken an expansive view of using high-tech surveillance tools in the name of public well-being.

The government’s virus-tracking software has been collecting information, including location data, on people in hundreds of cities across China. But the authorities have set few limits on how that data can be used. And now, officials in some places are loading their apps with new features, hoping the software will live on as more than just an emergency measure.

Like the Tokyo Olympics and other major events, international negotiations designed to address the threat of climate change will quite likely be delayed by a full year because of the pandemic.

“Given the uneven spread of Covid-19, this date would present the lowest risk of further postponement and the best chance of delivering an inclusive and ambitious” conference, British officials said.

The gathering is meant to rally world leaders to chart ways to avert the worst effects of climate change, including heat waves and flooded coastal cities.

Delaying the talks by a full year could worsen the problems, some diplomats say. Countries and international financial institutions may now feel freer to enact economic recovery plans without paying much heed to their climate implications.

More than 20 such conferences were held before countries agreed on the landmark 2015 Paris pact, under which they pledged to keep the increase in global average temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with preindustrial levels.

Grandparents choking on food because they were fed lying down. Residents left in filthy beds and soiled diapers for hours, in rooms with “significant fecal contamination” and cockroaches. Residents screaming for help for more than two hours before anyone answered.

Canadians knew the coronavirus had shred a deadly path through the country’s long-term-care homes, but a report drafted by the Canadian military adds new layers level of horror to the shocking tale.

“It’s appalling, it’s disgusting,” Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said on Tuesday as he released the confidential report to the public and demanded justice for families.

While nursing homes have been pummeled by the pandemic in many countries, in Canada they seem to have suffered an especially severe blow. Earlier this month, more than 80 percent of the country’s coronavirus deaths were reported to have been tied to long-term-care homes. (That figure has now passed 6,500.)

In the country’s two most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec, many centers were so badly hit and so understaffed that the federal government sent in the Canadian armed forces to help last month.

The new report, which pertains to five homes in Ontario, is heart-wrenching.

It cites not just a lack of infection control, but also burned-out employees who worked in a “culture of fear to use supplies because they cost money.” Essential items like wipes and linens were kept under “lock and key,” the report says.

In one home, staff members reported that patients had not been bathed for weeks, and in others, residents were not fed regularly and food was left out of reach.

Calling the report “deeply disturbing,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “I had, obviously, a range of emotions of anger, of sadness, of frustration, of grief.”

“We need to take action as a country,” Mr. Trudeau said.

Reporting was contributed by Andrew Higgins, Katrin Bennhold, Mihir Zaveri, Karen Zraick, Adam Nossiter, Raphael Minder, Li Yuan, Constant Méheut, Shalini Venugopal Bhagat, Russell Goldman, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Elaine Yu, Choe Sang-Hun, Raymond Zhong, Richard C. Paddock, Dera Menra Sijabat, Ben Dooley, Makiko Inoue, Mike Ives, Jenny Gross, Catherine Porter, Somini Sengupta, Alexandra Stevenson and Keith Bradsher.

[pdu-games]

Chapter 2: An Offer Arthur Could Not Refuse

Arthur was business wunderkind. He was shrewd negotiator, and he had preternatural ability to sniff out weaknesses in counterparts and competitors. He attracted millions of Sovereign Credits (Sc) in capital investments (something his father was too modest to ever do), and used the proceeds to buy-out one competitor after another. Those that would not sell to Fidge & Co., would be outcompeted into bankruptcy.

In only 11 years, Arthur grew his father’s small operation into the largest gas and mineral miner on Koss, employing over 300,000 people. Arthur’s meteoric rise as a mining tycoon made him a minor celebrity in the business world. Twice in the last year alone he had been featured in system wide Sovereign news broadcasts praising his achievements. Twice! No question, he was a titan of industry.

With Fidge & Co.’s operations concentrated on Koss, Arthur could not run his empire remotely from its moon. He had to be planet side. But Koss City’s residential zones didn’t offer the same quality of life, access to schools, and proximity to culture and entertainment that New Victoria did, so Arthur and Ada agreed to maintain a primary residence on New Victoria, currently in a luxury high-rise in Central Arma, as well as a modest studio apartment in Koss City’s Flatiron Resi District, which Arthur used as a pied-a-tier while working. (Flatiron was generally regarded as the best of Koss City’s four major resi districts, but Arthur still found it dreary and industrially sterile.)

At first, the couple agreed that Arthur would work 3 Sovereign Standard Days (SSDs) out of Fidge & Co.’s Arma satellite office for every 4 days he worked out of Koss City, but over the following decade, this ratio had slipped from 3:4 to 2:5, and more recently, due to Fidge & Co. acquiring and integrating Eltech Industries, Arthur hardly spent 1 day on New Victoria out of every 14.

His laser focus on building his mining empire had certainly taken its toll on Arthur’s relationship with his family, in particular Ada, who hadn’t shared Arthur’s ambitions for empire building, and who in their courtship and early marriage had grown accustomed to a certain balance of work and life. Arthur knew Ada felt blindsided by how quickly he pivoted (following his father’s untimely death) from family man to titan of industry.

And his beautiful children, the centers of his universe, how he missed them dearly. Clark and Astrid never really knew the family-man Arthur, as Clark was very young when Arthur began running the business (and Astrid wouldn’t be born for a few years), so they were fully accustomed to seldomly seeing their father. This fact did not assuage Arthur’s pangs of loneliness and guilt.

Honos was Arthur’s idea; a gift to his wife and children. After the Eltech integration was under control, he was able to spend two weeks providing his family undivided attention in a luxurious resort on the tropical paradise Inner moon. A resort that he could never have dreamed of affording as a young man on a world he could never dreamed of visiting. Now, look at him. All told, the vacation cost him a small fortune, but he loved spoiling his family, so he didn’t think twice about spending the money.

His lovely wife, though, was still upset with him.

What more could I do? he thought to himself, still gazing out of his window over the swirling sea of gases. Arthur decided he would surprise his wife by sending some extravagant jewelry (a necklace perhaps?) to her at her office today. He knew the jealousy from her coworkers as she opened her gift would cheer her up, at least for a bit. He figured he would need to include a little note, which he started to outline in his mind. Dearest Ada, you are my cosmic anchor…no…cosmic pillar…hmm, not right either.

Content with his plan, and with his guilt subsiding, Arthur resolved to head to the office. He would sort out the message to Ada later.

***

Arthur arrived at the Fidge & Co.’s headquarters, which occupied the top 20 floors of the Centri Tower in Koss City’s business district along the southeast edge of the city, slightly past 0700 SG (Standard Gesag Time). (Even though the planetary rotations of Koss were very different than those of Gesag, Fidge & Co. operated on Standard Gesag Time, as did most large corporations throughout Arcturus, as mandated by the Sovereign to facilitate inter-connectivity and trade.)

He was one of the first to arrive, so the halls, which generally buzzed with activity, were eerily calm. In fact, from the time Arthur’s private shuttle dropped him at the main entrance to when he arrived at his office on the 54th floor, he only counted precisely two human faces (and of course a handful of security androids).

Arthur’s corner office was the top floor of the Centri Tower, which provided him unobstructed views of Koss City to the north and the vibrant sea of gases to the east. On days with good visibility, Arthur could look out eastward over the horizon and faintly make out a series of his rigs (the Alpha 88-900 cluster).

Arthur sat at his metallic desk, turned on his computer, and reviewed his schedule for the day: back-to-back meetings with his senior managers beginning at 0800 with no break until 1300. At 1330 he had a lunch meeting with a competitor to discuss preliminary merger prospects, and from 1500 through the early evening, he reserved time to visit a few newly operating rigs.

With a few moments to spare before his hectic morning began, Arthur then opened a news app. The top headline read “Terrans raid Io’s Covent City; 38 civilians dead and 200 more injured.” Those goddamn mongrels, Arthur thought to himself. And Io, of all places. What were they doing all the way in there? Right under the nose of the Sovereign. What is the Sovereign going to do about these pirates? And frak, I know people on Io. Alsaad. And who was his wife? Shira, or was it Li?    

Arthur was interrupted in this train of thought by a buzz on his haptic comband. Surprised by a call so early in the day, he looked at his left wrist, which revealed he was receiving a call from Mila Lockett.

Frak! Arthur’s heart started to race as he considered his options. He had been dodging calls from Mila for the last two weeks. He could continue to ignore her now, but this would only aggravate her further. Of course, when he was on Honos, billions of miles from New Victoria, he didn’t have to worry about Mila tracking him down. Now, how long until she would show up in person, with her goons, at his apartment (or worse, at his office)? A couple hours, perhaps. No, evasion was out of the question.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Arthur knew he needed answer, so he frantically tidied his desk, took a deep breath, and used the controls on his haptic comband to transfer the call to his office hologram.

The Penrose hologram coil above his desk came to life, whirling mechanically for an instant while it calibrated its position vis-à-vis Arthur and the nearby furniture before projecting a life-size, three-dimensional image of Mila sitting in a chair across the desk from Arthur. Mila was a handsome woman in her mid-to-late 70s with Smokey-grey hair, lightly wrinkled skin, and piercing blue eyes. Mila had a stern business-like expression on her face, and Arthur could tell instantly she was furious. Arthur had to figure out how to diffuse the tension quickly. He put on a big smile and enthusiastically greeted the hologram. “Mila! How are you?” Arthur knew how to dial up the charm when he needed to.

Mila’s stern expression did not change. She took paused for a second to regard Arthur before speaking, “Mr. Fidge. I assume you have now had sufficient time to consider our proposal. What are your thoughts?”

“Always straight to business! No bullshit. That’s why I like you, Mila. Well, the proposal,” Arthur swallowed hard and took a moment to choose his words wisely. “It’s an interesting proposal, to say the least. I’m just not sure now’s the right time. We’re still digesting the Eltech acquisition, and we have a very robust pipeline of new mining contracts we’re chewing on.”

The proposal in question was an offer by the Lockett family to invest Sc. 30 million in Fidge & Co. to fund the acquisition of a nanometals factory on the distant planet, Ukemochi. The proposal made no business sense to Arthur. There was no business case to justify Fidge & Co. spreading itself thin by entering a new industry Arthur knew little about on a planet Arthur had never been to. Of course, the Lockett family had its own business reasons for wanting access to that operation, but Arthur did not know what for certain. He did speculate, though. Perhaps a front for money-laundering or smuggling of some sort. That’s what these people were always after, wasn’t it?

The Lockett family and connected organizations were Arthur’s main financial backers. In the early months of Arthur’s tenure as President of Fidge & Co., he was seeking to raise capital to fund some his basic growth initiatives. Traditional investors turned him down, not wanting to back a greenhorn with little experience. Mila, on the other hand, embraced Arthur and made him feel like he was part of her family. Mila invested Sc. 50 million in Arthur, much more money than Fidge & Co. had earned in its collectively 30 year history to date. In exchange, Arthur would just have to turn a blind eye to the Lockett family occasionally smuggling contraband on Fidge & Co. transport shuttles. It all seemed so simple back then. The Lockett family continued to invest millions into Fidge & Co., and with each investment, the family’s tentacles sunk deeper into Arthur’s business.

Sensing Mila was not convinced, Arthur continued, “Look, Mila. It’s all hands-on-deck right now, and I don’t think…”

Mila cut in, “Listen closely, Mr. Fidge. I don’t think you understand the nature of our proposal or for that matter, the nature of our relationship. You owe the Lockett family everything, and you’ll want to consider closely the consequences of turning us down.”

Arthur was shocked. I owe them everything? He thought to himself. The nerve of her to suggest I owe them ANYTHING after I’ve made them an absolute fortune.

Arthur leaned forward towards Mila, a vein now starting to bulge in his forehead, and burst out, “How exactly do you figure I owe you anything? Sure, you saw potential in me when no one else did, and for that I am eternally grateful, but you must agree that your faith in me has been repaid many times over. I’ve already returned your investment five-fold, cash-on-cash, and I’m really just getting started. This is a prodigious return I’ve created for you. You can’t argue with that, so how exactly do you figure I owe you ‘everything’?”

For the first time in this conversation, Mila cracked a smile. It was very subtle, barely detectable to Arthur, but he was certain he saw it, and this deeply unnerved him. Mila answered, “Have you ever reflected on to what you owe your success? Do you think it was your wit that allowed you to outmaneuver some of the most sophisticated enterprises in Arcturus? Do you think seasoned business leaders with decades of experience were intimidated by a 20-something-year-old kid? We have been there at every major decision point to make sure you were in the right place at the right time. We made your competitors play ball and stay out of your way, and if they did not want to cooperate, we made them disappear.  In no uncertain terms, we put you where you are now, and if you’re not cut out for the next phase of the company’s growth, we’ll replace you with someone that is. I’ve been very patient with you, but my patience is running thin, so please let me know if you’re in or you’re out”

Arthur, deflated and stunned, quietly acquiesced,

“Excellent. My lieutenants are already en route.”

[republicstandard]

Black Lives Don't Matter: UK Police and Press Ignore The Realities of Race

Recently the United Kingdom has finally had some news that puts us right back on top. Yes, that's right- after spending so long playing second fiddle to those swaggering, sneeringly glamorous New Yorkers (for 218 years!), we have done it. Finally, London is the most multicultural, multicriminal city in the West- number one for getting raped, stabbed, burgled and assaulted. In your face, America.

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As we know all too well from the Gamergate fiasco, when looking at real-world problems with difficult answers the most important thing to do is to shift the blame onto people who say edgy things online. From The Times:

Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said that often- trivial disputes between young people were escalating into murder and stabbings at unprecedented rates. The goading of rivals on online message boards and video sites “revs people up” and normalized violence, she said.

The speed at which disputes gathered pace echoed the way in which some Islamists, including the perpetrator of the lorry attack in Nice in 2016, were radicalized within days or weeks.

A febrile online atmosphere was among factors responsible for rising knife crime. Also to blame were drug-dealing, absent fathers and socioeconomics, Ms. Dick said.

Well, that's a whole lot of sweeping under the carpet and no mistake- you may remember Cressida Dick claiming that gangs of rapists have “probably” been in Britain for “centuries and centuries and centuries” so that's Nothing To Do With Islam, either. It is very cute how we see the topic of jihad slid into the middle of the quote to reinforce the message. It wasn't Islam that drove a man to murder 83 people and injure 453 more. It was the internet!

Damn you, 4Chan!

Maybe Dick is right, and YouTube is more of a problem than Islam, Facebook is worse than a failed multi-generational multicultural experiment, Gab is more terrible than mass immigration that not one British person was asked about; and LinkedIn is not just a place to get a new job, it is far more crippling to our society than the reality that Race and IQ are real; and most uncomfortable of all, IQ predicts both achievement and propensity for criminality. In Britain, Black people were over 3 times more likely to be arrested than White people in 2016, and Black women were more than twice as likely to be arrested as White women.

Wait! That's because Britain is racist!

Not so. As we know that from several studies into race bias, the UK is one of the least racist countries on the face of the planet. It appears to be the case that as the Cathedral can no longer say that Britons are racists, and it is objectively true that London is no longer British with only a 45% Ethnic British population, we are now entering a period where race is simply ignored. This is mind-blowingly irresponsible. The solution? Blame the internet.

It must be social media that drives a spike in criminality of such magnitude that even without the dreaded AR-15 we see more butchery on the streets of London than New York. It is the internet that led to a boy being stabbed to death over some stolen pasta. Drug crime is the fault of Instagram. Acid attacks? Blame Jack Dorsey for not clamping down on what can be said on Twitter.

Pesky things like facts and evidence might suggest otherwise. The Evening Standard reported last year that between June 2016 and June 2017:

The blade offenses include 214 killings, 391 attempted murders, 438 rapes, 182 other sexual assaults, and 14,429 robberies. There were also more than 18,500 assaults involving an injury or intent to inflict harm with a blade and 2,816 threats to kill with a knife.

The statisticians said that a 47 percent rise in knife crimes in London —where 35 young people aged under 25 have been killed by stabbings in the past 12 months — was a prime cause of the national increase.

Cressida Dick acknowledges as a footnote that absentee fathers and drug dealing are a problem, but will not state the obvious. We are dealing with a capital city that is no longer British controlled. As the BBC reported sullenly:

On Friday, a woman, 36, became the 10th victim after being stabbed to death in Haringey, north London.

In September last year, the MP for Croydon Central, Sarah Jones, said social media was "fuelling an escalation in the cycle of violence among young people".

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The Evening Standard said the following:

The 36-year-old was found suffering stab wounds, a spokesman said. She was pronounced dead just after 8 am. A 38-year-old man who knew the victim was arrested at the scene and is being held at a north London police station.

I want to use this short quote to show you how to read reports from the BBC and most British media when they try to discuss crime and race. You will rarely see mention of race or religion on the BBC, unless that piece is resolutely pro-multiculturalism. The problem is that in Britain, race does not matter at all when describing crime- even when to ignore it means death. Everyone, regardless of origin, ethnicity or belief system can be as British as I am, and then race is all that matters- because those new British citizens need help and protection from me, for some reason.

Perhaps that is a good thing and I am missing the point of all this entirely- but I do have certain quibbles about a reality that asks me to simultaneously deny my own racial identity at all costs, and then flip-flops between demanding that ethnic minorities are looking at with unwavering adoration while turning a blind eye to inconvenient statistics on crime, FGM, rape gangs and the utter failure of integration. That is a maddening double standard, enforced now by hate speech laws which are so subjective no Briton can speak freely in his own land, about things that are true.

This is how the BBC reports on an Iraqi who was trained to kill by ISIS, who was still allowed into the country and tried to blow up a train full of my kin.

BREAKING "Dangerous and devious" Surrey teenager jailed for life for Parsons Green Tube bombing, in which 51 people injured https://t.co/Fv4T9dKbNL

— BBC South East (@bbcsoutheast) March 23, 2018

Meanwhile, the BBC consider the reasonable call for tighter immigration to be far right and "right-wing rhetoric." If people decide to call a group far right then that is how the BBC will report. The BBC is an anti-White British organization- there can be no other rationale in a world where concern over immigration is a far right (i.e, White) position while ignoring overwhelming evidence of the impact of immigration on the lives of real people.

Haringey, where Friday's murder took place, has some interesting demography. as of a school census in 2013, 18.7% of school pupils between the ages of 3 and 18 were White British. The overall population of Haringey was less than 35% White British- and that's as of the 2011 census.

From Haringey Council's website:

Almost two-thirds of our population and over 70% of our young people are from ethnic minority backgrounds, and over 100 languages are spoken in the borough. Our population is the fifth most ethnically diverse in the country... The borough ranks among the most deprived in the country with pockets of extreme deprivation in the east.... the population is estimated to reach 286,900 by 2020, an increase of 5.9% from 2015. By 2025, Haringey’s population is estimated to reach 300,600, an increase of 10.9% from 2015.

Population growth locally is due to higher annual births than annual deaths, and net migration gain driven by high annual international migration.

We all know that correlation is not causation, and that race alone is not an indicator of criminality. That being said, we cannot ascribe the case of Haringey to mere coincidence when taken with the sad corollaries in so many boroughs of London.  Proclaiming not all is never an argument when faced with overwhelming evidence showing a significant over-representation.

In 2010, The Telegraph reported:

The official figures, which examine the ethnicity of those accused of violent offenses in London, suggest the majority of men held responsible by police for gun crimes, robberies, and street crimes are black...

The data provide a breakdown of the ethnicity of the 18,091 men and boys who police took action against for a range of violent and sexual offenses in London in 2009-10.

They show that among those proceeded against for street crimes, 54 percent were black; for robbery, 59 percent; and for gun crimes, 67 percent. Street crimes include muggings, assault with intent to rob and snatching property.

This was eight years ago. These statistics were the golden years in comparison to today. Incidentally, the Met Police lost their national statistics accreditation from the governing body in 2014, after it came to light that the police were misrepresenting data. I suppose they were racist numbers and had to be massaged to better represent the actual reality that diversity is our strength.

The point is that we have known for years that Black males are vastly over-represented in both crimes and as victims of violent crimes. Ignoring the problem in favor of pursuing "hate-crimes" and simply ignoring low-value crimes such as mugging and shoplifting has given a free ride to criminals across the city. Fewer police officers on the streets, shops looted with impunity and with a swift threat of violence to any citizen who dares defend themselves- for all know that London is truly lawless. The police cannot protect you from crime, but don’t complain. That could be hate speech.

We have 900+ specialist officers across London dedicated to investigating all hate crime. For more info visit https://t.co/VNyHq5vu5T #NHCAW pic.twitter.com/pp4XzyU5We

— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) October 19, 2017

“The black community has to look at itself and say that, at the end of the day, these figures suggest we are heavily – not casually – involved in violent crime. We are also involved in crime against ourselves – and we regularly attack each other.”  ~Shaun Bailey, 2010

Instead of addressing this problem- which if we do genuinely have any concern about human life at all, we must- Cressida Dick and a compliant media will instead blame Twitter spats and request further censorship of the online world. Bear in mind, this is a milieu where writing Islam promotes killing people will already have your Twitter account deleted. What we need then is to make it impossible for anyone to say "for some reason, blacks and certain other minorities are statistically over-represented in violent crime and that needs addressing, or more people will die." Well, I have said it. Arrest me for caring about people enough to not want them to die on the streets of my lost and broken capital city.

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Why do the BBC and the Metropolitan Police make excuses for London becoming a Third World country? Well; the truth is racist.

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[darylelockhart]

The rising homegrown terror threat on the right

by Arie Perliger

The murder in College Park, Maryland of Richard Collins III, an African-American student who had recently been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and was days away from his graduation from Bowie State University, underscores the violence of America’s far-right wing. Sean Urbanski, the University of Maryland student who allegedly stabbed Collins to death, belongs to a racist Facebook group called Alt-Reich: Nation.

It makes sense that the FBI is helping the police investigate this incident as a suspected hate crime. But my 15 years experience of studying violent extremism in Western societies has taught me that dealing effectively with far-right violence requires something more: treating its manifestations as domestic terrorism.

While attacks such as the recent suicide bombing in Manchester that left 22 people dead and several dozen injured will probably continue to garner more headlines, this growing domestic menace deserves more attention than it’s getting.

Domestic terrorism

Terrorism is a form of psychological warfare. Most terrorist groups lack the resources, expertise and manpower to defeat state actors. Instead, they promote their agenda through violence that shapes perceptions of political and social issues.

Collins’ murder, if it was motivated by racist sentiments, should be treated as an act of domestic terrorism, which I define here as the use of violence in a political and social context that aims to send a message to a broader target audience. Like lynching, cross-burning and vandalizing religious sites, incidents of this kind deliberately aim to terrorize people of color and non-Christians.

I consider domestic terrorism a more significant threat than the foreign-masterminded variety in part because it is more common in terms of the number of attacks on U.S. soil. For example, my report published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point identified hundreds of domestic terror incidents per year between 2008 and 2012.

Another report initially published in 2014 by New America Foundation on domestic incidents of extremist violence shows that excluding the Orlando nightclub massacre, between 2002-2016, far-right affiliated perpetrators conducted 18 attacks that killed 48 people in the United States, while terrorists motivated by al-Qaida’s or the Islamic State’s ideology killed 45 people in nine attacks.

The Orlando mass shooting, given its mix of apparent motives, is hard to categorize.

A spontaneous appearance

In briefings with law enforcement and policymakers, I have sometimes encountered a tendency to see U.S. right-wing extremists as a monolith. But traditional Ku Klux Klan chapters operate differently than skinhead groups, as do anti-government “patriot” and militia groups and anti-abortion extremists. Christian Identity groups, which believe Anglo-Saxons and other people of Northern European descent are a chosen people, are distinct too.

Certainly, there is some overlap. But these groups also differ significantly in terms of their methods of violence, recruitment styles and ideologies. Across the board, undermining the threat they pose requires a more sophisticated approach than investigating their criminal acts as suspected hate crimes.

In an ongoing study I’m conducting at the University of Massachusetts Lowell with several students, we have determined that, as apparently occurred with Collins’ recent murder in Maryland, many attacks inspired by racist or xenophobic sentiments may appear spontaneous. That is, no one plans them in advance or targets the victim ahead of time. Instead, chance encounters that enrage the perpetrators trigger these incidents.

Sporadic attacks with high numbers of casualties that are plotted in advance, such as Dylann Roof’s murder of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina church, are always big news. More typical incidents of far-right violence tend to draw less attention.

The widow of Clementa Pinckney, a pastor and South Carolina lawmaker slain in the mass murder at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, hugs her daughter during a 2015 memorial service for victims of that attack. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

The fatal stabbing of Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche and Ricky John Best aboard a train in Portland, Oregon on May 26 seems to be emerging as an exception. The alleged killer of these two white men, Jeremy Joseph Christian, attacked them with a knife after they stood up to him for haranguing two young women who appeared to be Muslim, police said. A third injured passenger is expected to survive. Much of the media coverage is focused on Christian’s violent and racist background.

Given the spontaneous nature of so much far-right violence, U.S. counterterrorism policies should, in my view, target the dissemination of white supremacist ideology, rather than just identifying planned attacks and monitoring established white supremacy groups.

An iceberg theory

The number of violent attacks on U.S. soil inspired by far-right ideology has spiked since the beginning of this century, rising from a yearly avarage of 70 attacks in the 1990s to a yearly avarage of more than 300 since 2001. These incidents have grown even more common since President Donald Trump’s election.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that researches U.S. extremism, reported 900 bias-related incidents against minorities in the first 10 days after Trump’s election – compared to several dozen in a normal week – and the group found that many of the harassers invoked the then-president-elect’s name. Similarly, the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that tracks anti-Semitism, recorded an 86 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the first three months of 2017.

Beyond the terror that victimized communities are experiencing, I would argue that this trend reflects a deeper social change in American society.

The iceberg model of political extremism, initially developed by Ehud Shprinzak, an Israeli political scientist, can illuminate these dynamics.

Murders and other violent attacks perpetrated by U.S. far-right extremists compose the visible tip of an iceberg. The rest of this iceberg is under water and out of sight. It includes hundreds of attacks every year that damage property and intimidate communities, such as the recent attempted burning of an African-American family’s garage in Schodack, New York. The garage was also defaced with racist graffiti.

Data my team collected at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point show that the significant growth in far-right violence in recent years is happening at the base of the iceberg. While the main reasons for that are still not clear, it is important to remember that changes in societal norms are usually reflected in behavioral changes. Hence, it is more than reasonable to suspect that extremist individuals engage in such activities because they sense that their views are enjoying growing social legitimacy and acceptance, which is emboldening them to act on their bigotry.

Budget cuts

Despite an uptick in far-right violence and the Trump administration’s plan to increase the Department of Homeland Security budget by 6.7 percent to US$44.1 billion in 2018, the White House wants to cut spending for programs that fight non-Muslim domestic terrorism.

The federal government has also frozen $10 million in grants aimed at countering domestic violent extremism. This approach is bound to weaken the authorities’ power to monitor far-right groups, undercutting public safety.

How many more innocent people like Richard Collins III – and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche and Ricky John Best – have to die before the U.S. government starts taking the threat posed by violent white supremacists more seriously?

Arie Perliger is Director of Security Studies and professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Putting the economic divide into perspective (NY Mag) Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project took the Fed’s data and calculated how much the respective net worth of America’s top one percent and its bottom 50 percent has changed since 1989. He found that America’s superrich have grown about $21 trillion richer since Taylor Swift was born, while those in the bottom half of the wealth distribution have grown $900 billion poorer.

Airbus Is Ready for Pilotless Jets--Are You? (AP) The chief salesman for Airbus says his company already has the technology to fly passenger planes without pilots at all--and is working on winning over regulators and travelers to the idea.

As promised, Trump slashes aid to Central America over migrants (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration announced on Monday plans to permanently divert hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, after Trump blasted the three countries because thousands of their citizens had sought asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico.

In historic shift, Vatican to consider married priests for Amazon region (Reuters) A Vatican document on Monday said the Church should consider ordaining older married men as priests in remote areas of the Amazon, a historic shift which some say could pave the way for their use in other areas where clergy are scarce.

Brazil’s Odebrecht Files for Bankruptcy Protection (AP) Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht filed for bankruptcy protection Monday to restructure $13 billion in debt, worn down after spending five years at the center of one of the world’s largest corruption investigations.

Europe’s unwanted ISIS fighters (Foreign Policy) Europe does not want ISIS fighters to return home, but the Syrian Defense Forces who captured them do not have the sovereign power to sentence them, leaving their citizens in limbo, Pesha Magid writes for Foreign Policy.

Johnson Gets Further Boost in Race to Become British Prime Minister (Reuters) Boris Johnson got a further boost in his campaign to become Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday when a second former rival in the race backed him to lead the country out of its Brexit crisis.

No Chances of a New Brexit Deal--Germany’s Roth (Reuters) Germany will not accept any British attempts to change the terms of Britain’s departure from the European Union, Germany’s EU affairs minister Michael Roth said on Tuesday.

Salvini Proclaims Italy to Be Washington’s Best EU Ally (Reuters) Italy is the United States’ most reliable ally in Europe, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Monday, keen to present himself as a strong, trustworthy statesman during a flying visit to Washington.

EU at Odds Over Albania, Macedonia Joining; Cyprus Threatens Veto Over Turkey (Reuters) European Union states were at loggerheads on Monday over starting talks with Albania and North Macedonia to enter the bloc, while Cyprus threatened to veto any agreement on future enlargement unless the EU toughens its line on Turkish drilling.

India hits U.S. good with tariffs (LI) American goods including apples, almonds, and lentils, as well as several chemical products, will be hit with a 70% tariff by India after the country announced increased tariffs on U.S. exports. The two countries exchange goods and services worth about $142 billion a year, but the relationship went south when President Trump ended India’s participation in a preferential trade program earlier this month.

Indian doctors stage nationwide strike over ‘inhuman’ working conditions (Reuters) Hundreds of thousands of doctors across India went on strike demanding better working conditions, the country’s top medical body said, as the outrage over lax security conditions at hospitals escalated.

Rescue Efforts Underway After China Quake Kills at Least 12 (AP) Rescue efforts were underway Tuesday after an earthquake in southwestern China left 12 people dead and 135 others injured, authorities said.

Hong Kong Leader Apologizes, Says She Has Heard the People ‘Loud and Clear’ (Reuters) Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday said she had heard the people “loud and clear” and apologized again for recent upheaval after some of the most violent protests in the city against an extradition bill that she had promoted.

Japan Pushes 300 North Korean Boats Out of Fishing Grounds (AP) The Japanese coast guard said Tuesday its patrol boats have been pushing back hundreds of North Korean boats trying to poach in fishing grounds rich with squid off Japan’s northern coast.

Iran coverage is often a “paranoid feeding frenzy.” (CJR) Over the weekend, the Trump administration doubled down on its assertion that Iran was responsible for last week’s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News’s Chris Wallace that Iran’s culpability was “unmistakable”; when Wallace asked if Pompeo could share more evidence, Pompeo said “the world will come to see much of it.” Question marks linger: the Times’s Peter Baker writes that Trump’s “foggy truth” meeting the “fog of war” creates a deficit of credibility. Skepticism of US saber-rattling should go deeper than Trump. But, as Andrew Lee Butters wrote recently for CJR, Iran coverage is often a “paranoid feeding frenzy.”

Don’t Open ‘Pandora’s Box’ in Middle East, China Warns (Reuters) The Chinese government’s top diplomat warned on Tuesday that the world should not open a “Pandora’s Box” in the Middle East, as he denounced U.S. pressure on Iran and called on it not to drop out of a landmark nuclear deal.

Egypt’s ousted Islamist president Mursi dies after court hearing (Reuters) Former Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi, the first democratically elected head of state in Egypt’s modern history, died on Monday aged 67 after collapsing in a Cairo court while on trial on espionage charges, authorities said.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Migrants Being Held in Texas Enclosure as Surge Overwhelms El Paso (Reuters) Hundreds of migrants are being held in a chain-link enclosure in El Paso, Texas, as the number of families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the city overwhelms U.S. Border Patrol facilities, the agency said on Thursday.

Honduran Police Arrest Journalist Convicted of Defamation (AP) Honduran police broke down the door of a radio station and arrested a journalist known as a strong critic of President Juan Orlando Hernandez who had holed up inside, carrying out an arrest order Thursday against the reporter for a defamation conviction.

U.S. Bringing ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Venezuela: Sanctions Official (Reuters) The United States was bringing “maximum pressure” on the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro, a top U.S. sanctions official said on Friday.

Brazil Ex-President Temer Charged in Graft Case Linked to Meatpacker JBS (Reuters) Former Brazilian President Michel Temer has been formally charged with corruption on allegations of using a middleman to procure a suitcase full of cash from the world’s largest meatpacker, JBS SA, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.

‘Pandemonium’ at airports as Wow Air abruptly shuts down (The Week) Nothing ruins a trip quite like a canceled flight, but how about a canceled airline? Wow Air, the iconic purple-pink Icelandic carrier known for eye-poppingly cheap flights to and around Europe, folded on Thursday, leaving ticket-holding customers stranded at their gates without refunds or, well, flights.

UK’s Brexit options include customs union, no deal and delay (AP) Britain’s Brexit logjam has become a pileup. Lawmakers have voted, and the results are a mess. They don’t want Prime Minister Theresa May’s EU divorce deal, don’t want to leave without a deal, and don’t want any of the other options on offer. The country faces a deadline of April 12 to present the European Union with a new plan or crash out of the bloc.

German Government Extends Ban on Arms Exports to Saudi (AP) The German government has extended a ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia by six months until the end of September, but is making a conditional exception for systems developed jointly with other countries.

Modi launches election campaign (Reuters) India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has officially launched his party’s general election campaign. “Our vision is of a new India that will be in tune with its glorious past,” Modi said to roars of approval at a rally in India’s most populous state. The general election, the world’s biggest democratic exercise with about 900 million eligible voters, will be held in phases beginning on April 11 and ending on May 19.

Bangladesh high-rise office building catches fire, 19 dead (AP) A fire struck a high-rise office building in Bangladesh’s capital on Thursday, killing 19 people and injuring about 70 others, officials said. It trapped many inside the building, with some shouting for help from windows on high floors or from the roof.

Huawei Defends Security Record as Annual Sales Top $100B (AP) Chinese tech giant Huawei’s deputy chairman defended its commitment to security Friday after a stinging British government report added to Western pressure on the company by accusing it of failing to repair dangerous flaws in its telecom technology.

South Korea’s Moon to Meet Trump Over Stalled North Korea Talks (Reuters) Senior South Korean officials, including President Moon Jae-in, are launching a series of meetings with U.S. counterparts, in a bid to jumpstart stalled denuclearization talks with North Korea and mend fraying ties in their alliance.

Silent Crowd Listens to Mosque Victims’ Names at New Zealand Memorial (Reuters) Thousands stood in silence in a Christchurch park on Friday as the names of 50 people shot dead in two mosques were read out at a national memorial service, with speakers calling for the legacy of the tragedy to be a kinder, more tolerant New Zealand.

Pope Seeks to Build on Muslim Outreach With Morocco Trip (AP) Pope Francis is forging ahead with promoting moderate Islam during a weekend trip to Morocco, seeking to build on warming ties with the Sunni world while also ministering to a tiny Catholic community and offering solidarity with migrants.

Arabs Seek Unity on Golan, but Summit Likely to Expose Rifts (AP) Arab leaders meeting in Tunisia on Sunday hope to project unified opposition to the Trump administration’s acceptance of Israeli control over the Golan Heights and Jerusalem, but as with past Arab League summits, the gathering is likely to expose their own bitter rivalries.

Saudis contemplate nuclear power (Reuters) U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved six secret authorizations by companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia, according to a copy of a document seen by Reuters. Perry’s approvals, known as Part 810 authorizations, allow companies to do preliminary work on nuclear power ahead of any deal but not ship equipment that would go into a plant, a source with knowledge of the agreements said on condition of anonymity.

Mozambique Cholera Cases Jump to 139 a Day After Outbreak (AP) The number of cholera cases among survivors of a devastating cyclone in central Mozambique has jumped to 139, officials said, as nearly 1 million vaccine doses are rushed to the region.

[newstfionline]

London Fire Death Toll Rises to 17; Government Is Criticized

By Dan Bilefsky, NY Times, June 15, 2017

LONDON--The death toll rose to 17 and rescue workers continued to search for the missing on Thursday after a lethal fire in a West London apartment tower, as Prime Minister Theresa May came under pressure over whether the tragedy could have been prevented.

The blaze at the 24-story Grenfell Tower injured dozens of people, and fire officials warned that the number of dead was likely to grow: Many residents of the building were still unaccounted for. As of Thursday morning, 37 people were in hospitals, including 17 in critical care.

Firefighters said Wednesday afternoon that there was no hope of finding additional survivors, but the government has appealed for residents to call a hotline as they tried to account for everyone who might have been in the building when the fire broke out. Among those still missing were a young Italian couple who moved to the building several months ago, Italian news outlets reported. The building housed people from many countries, including Eritrea, the Philippines, Somalia and Sudan.

Mrs. May, already under pressure after a series of terrorist attacks and an election in which her Conservative Party lost its majority, visited the area of the fire, in the North Kensington neighborhood on Thursday, as did the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. The political fallout from the tragedy intensified as members of Parliament demanded to know why fire safety standards at the tower had not been more rigorous.

The Grenfell Action Group, an association of residents of Grenfell Tower, had complained for years that the local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which owns the building, and the company that managed the property had repeatedly ignored their concerns that the building posed a fire hazard.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but the police have ruled out terrorism.

The many questions being asked include whether a “stay put” fire protocol, which called for residents to remain in their apartments if there was a fire elsewhere in the building, might have turned a lethal fire even more deadly; what role aluminum exterior cladding, installed as part of a renovation completed last year, might have played in the fire’s rapid spread; and whether sprinklers and alarm systems had been in place and functioning properly.

Meriam Antur, who lived on the 19th floor of the tower, was one of many residents who said she was told to stay put, despite sirens and smoke that created panic. “My friend came in and said we had to wait for the firemen and couldn’t go down,” she said, recalling that as smoke entered the apartment, she tried to block it with a wet towel under the door, and began to pray.

“My children were crying, and I’m pregnant,” she said, clasping her belly. “I was so scared. I thought we were going to die.”

Matthew Needham-Laing, an architect and engineering lawyer who specializes in cases dealing with building defects, said the dark smoke that had engulfed the building was a telltale sign of burning cladding material.

“It looks to me like a cladding fire,” he said. The material in the cladding, he added, is “flame retardant, so it doesn’t catch fire as easily, but the temperatures you’re talking about are often 900, 1,000 degrees centigrade, and in those conditions, any material will generally burn.”

Sian Berry, chairwoman of the Housing Committee of the London Assembly, said that she was dismayed that no central fire alarms and fire drills were required for residential buildings, unlike in office buildings, and she expressed alarm that concerns about fire safety voiced by residents of Grenfell Tower before the tragedy had been ignored.

David Lammy, a Labour lawmaker representing Tottenham, in Northeast London, told the BBC that he considered the fire to be “corporate manslaughter.” “This is the richest borough in our country treating its citizens in this way, and we should call it what it is,” he said. “It is corporate manslaughter. That’s what it is. And there should be arrests made, frankly. It is an outrage.”

He said that after knocking on housing estate doors across the country during recent elections, he had seen that many buildings had antiquated fire standards and poor conditions.

“Those ‘70s buildings, many of them should be demolished,” he told the BBC. “They have not got easy fire escapes. They have got no sprinklers. It is totally, totally unacceptable in Britain that this is allowed to happen and that people lose their lives in this way. People should be held to account.”

Eddie Daffarn, a 16th-floor resident who is a member of the Grenfell Action Group, said he was only alerted to the fire by his neighbor’s smoke detector.

“The only alarm that went off was my neighbor’s smoke alarm. I thought he had burned some chips,” he said, referring to French fries. “I opened the door and there was smoke, loads of smoke, so then I closed it and thought: This is a real fire, not my mate’s chip pan.”

A friend who lived on the fifth floor phoned and urged him to flee, he said.

“I wrapped a towel around me, and opened the door,” Mr. Daffarn recalled. “The smoke was so thick and heavy I couldn’t see anything. I thought: ‘This is me, I’m a goner.’”

He finally descended and was helped by a firefighter.

“I am lucky to be alive,” he said.