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US intelligence warns China opposes Trump's re-election but Russia is working against Biden
US intelligence agencies have issued an update on election meddling which warns that Russia is seeking to undercut Joe Biden but China and Iran are trying to undermine Donald Trump. The statement said that Moscow is using a “range of measures” to “primarily denigrate” Mr Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who is seen as part of the “anti-Russia establishment”. But it also says that Beijing prefers that Mr Trump “does not win reelection” and sees him as “unpredictable”, while Tehran is opposing the president due to his hardline "pressure campaign" towards it. The remarks were issued by William Evanina, director of the US National Counterintelligence and Security Centre, who is helping lead the American intelligence efforts against election meddling. The 900-word statement, headlined ‘Election threat update for the American people’, spells out in detail how the three countries are attempting to influence the election.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 20:09:02 GMT

U.S. counterspy chief warns Russia, China, Iran trying to meddle in 2020 election

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 20:06:53 GMT

North Carolina to relax 10-person limit for GOP convention
North Carolina will ease gathering restrictions for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte this month after a push by the national party for the state to be more accommodating. The RNC has estimated it would have no more than 500 delegates per day at the Charlotte Convention Center and the Westin hotel. In a letter written to the RNC on Thursday, the state's health director and chief medical officer, Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson, said the Department of Health and Human Services understands more than 10 people may need to assemble indoors to conduct party business.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:56:49 GMT

Harleys everywhere, masks nowhere: Sturgis draws thousands
Thousands of bikers poured into the small South Dakota city of Sturgis on Friday as the 80th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally rumbled to life despite fears it could lead to a massive coronavirus outbreak. The rally could become one of the largest public gatherings since the pandemic began, with organizers expecting 250,000 people from all over the country to make their way through Sturgis during the 10-day event.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:50:16 GMT

Canada's last intact ice shelf collapses due to warming
Much of Canada's remaining intact ice shelf has broken apart into hulking iceberg islands thanks to a hot summer and global warming, scientists said. Canada's 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf on the northwestern edge of Ellesmere Island had been the country's last intact ice shelf until the end of July when ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service noticed that satellite photos showed that about 43% of it had broken off. The biggest is nearly the size of Manhattan — 21 square miles (55 square kilometers) and 7 miles long (11.5 kilometers).

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:38:03 GMT

Russia trying to undermine Biden in election, White House intelligence report says
Report from the director of National Intelligence's office says Russia is seeking to undermine Biden; China and Iran also interfering in the election.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:26:18 GMT

China and Iran trying to undermine Trump re-election while Russia looking to hurt Biden, top US intelligence official says
A top US counterintelligence official has issued a public statement warning that foreign states are continuing to use both overt and covert methods to influence the 2020 election.William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Centre, raises specific concerns over activity by China, Russia and Iran.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:20:00 GMT

US officials: Russia denigrating Biden ahead of election
U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia is using a variety of measures to denigrate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead of the November election and that individuals linked to the Kremlin are boosting President Donald Trump's reelection bid, the country’s counterintelligence chief said Friday. U.S. officials also believe that China does not want Trump to win a second term and that Beijing has accelerated its criticism of the president and its efforts to shape American opinion and public policy. The statement from William Evanina comes amid criticism from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional Democrats that the intelligence community has been withholding from the public specific intelligence information about the threat of foreign election interference in the upcoming election.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 18:56:06 GMT

Africa's week in pictures: 31 July - 6 August 2020
A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 17:44:07 GMT

US imposes sanctions on leader Carrie Lam over Hong Kong crackdown
* Other senior Chinese and Hong Kong officials sanctioned by US * Tensions between Beijing and Washington escalate sharplyThe US government has imposed sanctions on Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam, and 10 other senior Chinese and Hong Kong officials, in response to the crackdown on free speech and political freedoms in the city, the US treasury department said.The measures are among the most high-profile taken by the US administration in a broad campaign to challenge China at home and internationally, as tensions between the world’s two largest economies escalate sharply.In addition to Lam, the sanctioned Hong Kong officials include the current and former head of the city’s police force – criticised by protesters for its brutal tactics – and the cabinet secretaries for justice, Teresa Cheng, and security, John Lee Ka-chiu.From the mainland, targets include Luo Huining, who heads the Hong Kong liaison office and is the most senior Chinese figure in the city, and Zheng Yenxiong, a hardliner appointed to the newly created position of security chief.“The United States stands with the people of Hong Kong and we will use our tools and authorities to target those undermining their autonomy,” said the secretary of the treasury, Steven Mnuchin.It is relatively unusual for Washington to directly a sanction the leader of a country or region and the move puts Lam in company with Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.The sanctions have been brought in under an executive order that Donald Trump signed last month, in response to China’s introduction of a sweeping new security law in Hong Kong.Beijing said the law was needed to restore stability and would not threaten Hong Kong’s freedom of expression. But it has already been used to crush dissent, cited in the barring of moderate pro-democratic candidates from elections, the arrest of teens for social media posts, and the suppression of popular protest slogans.It has been widely condemned by western governments, and has led many to reconfigure their relationship with Hong Kong, including ending extradition agreements. The US has ended special economic status for the city, which is likely to batter an economy already badly damaged by Covid-19.“This law, purportedly enacted to ‘safeguard’ the security of Hong Kong, is in fact a tool of Chinese Communist Party repression,” said the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, after the sanctions were announced.He is one of a group of China hawks in the Trump administration, along with the trade adviser, Peter Navarro, and deputy national security adviser, Matthew Pottinger, who recently appear to have gained the upper hand in the White House.The coronavirus pandemic, the suppression of dissent in Hong Kong and increasing information about the mass internment of Uighurs and other minorities in western Xinjiang have all been cited as reasons for the shift in Washington’s stance.These latest sanctions come the day after Trump announced that he would ban transactions with the Chinese companies that own popular apps TikTok and WeChat.Last month the administration also imposed sanctions on a senior Chinese communist party official, Chinese companies and a paramilitary government organisation it alleged were complicit in forced labour and other abuses in the western Xinjiang region.US and Chinese officials are due to meet in mid-August to discuss how to revive a partial trade deal agreed in January, amid US allegations that Beijing is not keeping its promises on buying US agricultural products and energy.But hopes of success are limited. Trump has said his support for the deal has been undermined by China’s role in the coronavirus outbreak, and his re-election campaign has so far leaned heavily on anti-Chinese rhetoric.There was no immediate response to the sanctions from Hong Kong or Beijing. Lam has previously said she is not worried about sanctions. “I have no assets in the US, and I don’t particularly like going to the US. If they won’t grant me a visa, then I will just not go there,” she said in a TV interview last month.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 16:58:48 GMT

State Department: We're responsible for Russian, Iranian text message campaign
The U.S. State Department said on Friday that it was responsible for a text message campaign that left a trail of confusion and ridicule across Russia and Iran.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 16:19:19 GMT

EU mulls offering British expats additional freedom of movement rights
British people living in the EU when the Brexit transition period ends will be given additional freedom of movement rights under plans being considered by Brussels. European Commission officials are mulling plans that will allow British citizens living in an EU country at the end of 2020 deadline to move to and work in another country in the bloc in a similar fashion to EU citizens. The unilateral offer is expected to come with strings such as a requirement to show five years continuous residence in the EU. Details of the offer on onward free movement were explained at a Thursday meeting of the EU-UK Joint Specialised Committee on citizens rights, Politico reported. “We received good news on combining our Withdrawal Agreement status with other EU immigration statuses, which should provide some UK citizens in the EU with some further mobility rights,” Fiona Godfrey, co-chair of the British in Europe campaign told the news website. “We now need clarity on how those rights will be evidenced.” There are about 1.1 million British citizens living in the EU. Under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, they would only be granted residence rights in the EU country they lived in, rather than keep free movement rights for the whole bloc. EU citizens living in the UK must apply for settled status to secure their residency rights in Britain. There have been 3.7 million applications and more are expected ahead of the June 30 deadline next year. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said, “Citizens’ rights has been an absolute priority and the Withdrawal Agreement protects the rights of UK nationals living in the EU by the end of the transition period on December 31 2020, ensuring that they can continue to live their lives in the EU broadly as they did before.”

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 16:10:59 GMT

UK and Japan look to seal trade deal within month
The two sides say the "major elements" of a post-Brexit agreement are in place after productive talks.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:59:40 GMT

Plane skids off runway in India; 16 killed, dozens hurt
A special flight carrying evacuees to India who had been stranded abroad because of the coronavirus skidded off a runway and split in two while landing Friday in heavy rain in the southern state of Kerala, killing at least 16 passengers and injuring 123 more, police said. Abdul Karim, a senior Kerala state police officer, said the dead included one of the pilots of the Air India Express flight. The two-year-old Boeing 737-800 flew from Dubai to Kozhikode, also called Calicut, in Kerala, India’s southernmost state, the airline said.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:55:23 GMT

Virus resistant: World's Longest Yard Sale still lines roads
For decades, thousands of vendors have fanned out along roadsides from Alabama to Michigan each summer to haggle over the prices of old Coca-Cola bottles, clothes, toys, knives and more at The World's Longest Yard Sale. From there, it meanders through northwest Georgia to Noccalula Falls, a 250-acre (100-hectare) public park in Gadsden.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:43:26 GMT

Cuomo clears New York schools statewide to open, carefully
New York schools can bring children back to classrooms for the start of the school year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday, citing success in battling the coronavirus in the state that once was the U.S. heart of the pandemic. “Everywhere in the state, every region is below the threshold that we established,” Cuomo told reporters. Many New York school districts have planned to start the year with students in school buildings only a few days a week, while learning at home the rest of the time.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:43:21 GMT

Iran indifferent to Trump envoy's quitting amid embargo push

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:32:19 GMT

'Aggressive action' needed as Africa coronavirus cases pass 1m
South Africa has more than half of all Covid-19 cases, while Tanzania's lack of data is a "concern".

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:30:20 GMT

Global Force Sensors Industry

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:00:00 GMT

Appeals court revives House lawsuit for McGahn's testimony
A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday revived House Democrats' lawsuit to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to appear before a congressional committee, but left other legal issues unresolved with time growing short in the current Congress. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 7-2 in ruling that the House Judiciary Committee can make its claims in court, reversing the judgment of a three-judge panel that would have ended the court fight.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:50:59 GMT

Ford, Bush presidential adviser Brent Scowcroft dies at 95
Brent Scowcroft, who played a prominent role in American foreign policy as national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush and was a Republican voice against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died, a Bush spokesperson said Friday. Scowcroft died Thursday of natural causes at his home in Falls Church, Virginia, spokesperson Jim McGrath said. Scowcroft was the only person to serve as national security adviser to two different administrations.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:30:39 GMT

Squirrel AI Learning Wins UNESCO AI Innovation Award
Recently, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) granted Squirrel AI Learning the "AI Innovation Award" for the Mobile Learning Week 2020 under the theme "Artificial intelligence and Inclusion" in order to affirm Squirrel AI Learning's role as a leader in promoting personalized high-quality learning with AI recognition of learning patterns. UNESCO recognizes the value of this innovation in the contribution towards the direction of more inclusion and equity in education. Other winners of this award include Google, University College London (UCL) and Tomorrow Advancing Life (TAL).

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:30:00 GMT

Palestinians say woman killed in Israeli raid in West Bank

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:25:42 GMT

Global Froth Flotation Chemicals Industry

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:20:00 GMT

Global FRP Grating Industry

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:00:00 GMT

Job losses, fear of virus complicate Latino voter hopes
Every day, 29-year-old Maico Olivares tries to call about 25 people, mostly within the Latino community, to persuade them to register to vote. Olivares shares concerns with Latino advocates around the country who worry that the virus’ effect on Latinos, who have seen high rates of infection and unemployment, will keep them from the polls this year.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:47:19 GMT

Global FRP Tanks Industry

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:40:00 GMT

AP Exclusive: Woman is 1st in US to get 2nd face transplant
Carmen Blandin Tarleton, whose face was disfigured in an attack by her ex-husband, became the first American and only the second person globally to undergo the procedure after her first transplant began to fail six years after the operation. The transplant from an anonymous donor took place at Boston's Brigham and Women’s Hospital in July. The 52-year-old former nurse is expected to resume her normal routine, which all but ended when the first transplant failed a year ago.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:33:10 GMT

Winfrey demanding justice for Breonna Taylor with billboards
First, Oprah Winfrey put Breonna Taylor on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine. Now the media mogul is spreading her message with billboards demanding justice for the Kentucky woman shot to death during a police raid. Twenty-six billboards displaying a portrait of Taylor are going up across Louisville, Kentucky, demanding that the police officers involved in her death be arrested and charged, according to social justice organization Until Freedom.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:18:13 GMT

Global Fume Hood Monitors Industry

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:40:00 GMT

Brag and name drop: How to project credibility as workplace meetings move online
COVID-19 has altered nearly every aspect of American life, including the workplace. For millions of Americans, the kitchen or the living room now doubles as the office and conference room. This workspace shift, likely to last long past the pandemic, offers some conveniences, of course, but it also teems with potential pitfalls. Traditional tactics for achieving credibility in presentations – audience interaction and engaging body language, for example – are not accessible when you appear on a laptop or smartphone screen.Suddenly, what you say carries more weight than ever. As an English language studies professor, I wanted to understand how presenters build credibility, so I analyzed the transcripts of 30 panel discussions at the Brookings Institution in 2019 to glean the verbal strategies used by foreign affairs experts. While I have carefully dissected these strategies as a specialist in public speaking skills, they boil down to a simple message for anyone delivering a presentation via a digital screen: Brag and name drop. 11 strategies for building credibilityHere are specific examples of the many techniques I detected.1\. Prestigious affiliation: Establishes ties to a prestigious organization. Kathleen Hicks, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, does that here: “…the conclusion of the commission on which I serve, the National Defense Strategy Commission, and certainly the work I do in my job at CSIS…” 2\. Prestigious title: Names impressive position titles. Yael Tamir, a professor at the University of Oxford, stated, “I was a minister of immigration (in Israel) about 12 years ago…” 3\. Disciplinary expertise: Highlights area of professional expertise. Suzanne Maloney, deputy director of foreign policy at Brookings, said, “From my perspective, as someone who works on Iranian internal politics and economics, and on the U.S.-Iran relationship…”4\. Professional identity: Claims affiliation with a professional community. Tamir, the Oxford professor, stated, “It all starts with the definition as we know, as we political theorists know…”5\. Professional experience: Underscores the breadth or impact of professional experience. Jeannine Scott, of the nonprofit Constituency for Africa, emphasized a résumé few have: “If you’ve engaged with the Continent as I have for over 30 years now…”6\. Professional accomplishments: Highlights career achievements, as Lynn Rusten, a vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, did: “What’s interesting is the original START Treaty, which I also helped negotiate…”7\. Educational experience: Mentions educational institution attended, area studied or degree earned. Adam La Reau, a Navy veteran, said the following: “I went to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy…”8\. Self-citation: Cites one’s own public comments. Brett McGurk, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stated: “I was on record in 2013 about this rising threat and I testified…” 9\. Prominent connections: Mentions interactions with prominent individuals, as McGurk did: “And walking into a meeting with President Obama and the national security team, I got a phone call from a very senior Iraqi official who said…”10\. Professional reputation: Shows that others seek their expertise, like Jung Pak, a senior fellow at the Center for East Asia Policy Studies: “During the Fire and Fury days (President Trump’s threat against North Korea in 2017), I got lots of phone calls from friends from New York, to the Midwest, to L.A. wondering about whether they should go on their business trip…”11\. Personal background: Discloses religion, nationality, ethnicity or other personal characteristics. Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at Brookings, said: “This was a very minoritarian take on Islam, and in my view as a Muslim myself, a perverted one.” Using the strategiesThese strategies were typically used as additional information within a sentence. For example, if Maloney, the senior fellow at Brookings, were to cut her disciplinary expertise in the following sentence – the phrase within the commas – it would still make rational sense: “From my perspective, as someone who works on Iranian internal politics and economics and on the U.S.-Iran relationship, we are coming at the end of a long period of limbo.”Maloney avoids sounding arrogant by not featuring her disciplinary expertise in a separate sentence, an important point for those who wish to build credibility – but not sound pretentious. Creating community: ‘We see’Speakers often used the expression “we see” to deepen affiliation with an expert community and make nonbiased observations. In this excerpt, Bilyana Petkova, a fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, illustrates her insider information about the data privacy field: “So, in the data privacy field, we see how this dynamic has played out a role in the E.U., where the first data privacy statute was adopted in the German locality of Hassan…”Using “we” rather than “I” helps speakers relate their observations to those of experts and reduce perceptions that they are sharing a biased view. Elevating stature: ‘If you’Speakers often emphasized exclusive knowledge or professional experience by using the phrase “if you.”Dennis Wilder, managing director of the U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University, said: “One of the things to understand if you haven’t been involved in a presidential visit to a place like Beijing…” With this phrase, he builds his stature by pointing to his prestigious experience.[Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week. Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter.]Panelists drew this expert-novice distinction in other ways, too. They emphasized familiarity with current events, for example, with phrases such as “If you look at what the intelligence community and the Department of Defense have been saying” and “If you look at the U.S. and Russian statements… this week.” It’s not just the knowledge we hold that builds credibility – how we communicate that knowledge is also imperative. With companies like Facebook paving the way for permanent remote work, Americans will be forced to rethink how we achieve credibility in workplace presentations. Amid the uncertainty created by the pandemic, what’s certain is that verbal communication strategies will become even more critical to our perceived competence and success.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * 8 simple strategies to fuel your body during a pandemic * 4 weird things that happen when you videoconferenceLisa Leopold does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:35:12 GMT

27 dead in Mauritania migrant boat disaster: UN
Twenty-seven people died after the engines on their migrant vessel failed, leaving them stranded off the coast of Mauritania, the United Nations said on Friday. The UN's refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a joint statement that they were "deeply saddened at the tragic death of 27 people". A boat en route towards Spain's Canary Islands ran into engine trouble between the northern Mauritanian city of Nouadhibou and the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara, according to the statement.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:14:23 GMT

Will Macron Deliver on His Lofty Promises to Help Beirut?
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- There were moments during Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Beirut on Thursday when it seemed that the French president was in a mosh pit, crowd-surfing over waves of adulation and anger: The adulation was for him, and far more than he might reasonably expect from a Parisian throng; the anger was for the entire Lebanese political class, who are being collectively blamed for the devastating blasts that shattered much of the city on Tuesday. It is easy enough to cavil, as some have, that Macron’s walkabout in the Gemmayzeh neighborhood was political theater. He was always going to get a friendlier reception in a Francophile quarter of East Beirut than, say, in the southern suburbs controlled by Hezbollah.But there is no gainsaying the fact that the French president did what few local leaders have cared (or dared) to: listen to the grievances of a traumatized people and promise to help.In Gemmayzeh and later at a press conference in the French embassy, Macron said all the right things: The Lebanese were not alone in their grief, he would rally international donors to help rebuild their damaged capital, and the money would not go to the “corrupt hands” of their politicians. He pledged to return to Beirut on Sept. 1 to personally verify that French aid, funneled through non-governmental organizations, is going “directly to the people of Lebanon.”He also called for an international investigation into the blasts, “to make sure nothing remains hidden and no doubts linger.”It was Macron at his most statesmanlike, speaking not only for France but for the wider world, and promising to cut through a geopolitical Gordian knot. But the president has a poor track record in turning rhetoric into results.His attempt to mediate the U.S.-Iranian confrontation last year earned him only scorn from both sides. His recent finger-pointing over Libya’s civil war has spared him no blushes. His enthusiasm for the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa has left French forces in what looks like a quagmire.He may feel on firmer ground in Lebanon, a former French protectorate. In an interview, Macron said if France did not play its part, “other powers may interfere whether it be Iran, Saudi Arabia or Turkey.”He need not worry about competition, though. No other world leader is auditioning for the role of Beirut’s savior. France could, if Macron were so minded, bail out Lebanon’s stricken economy by itself. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with an ornery Trump or an obstinate Erdogan — or even an overcautious Angela Merkel.But he would have to reckon with Lebanon’s obstreperous politicians, who are averse to any political and economic reforms that might whittle away their privileges, such as the freedom to loot the state’s resources. Macron said the country needed a “new political initiative.” It will take rather more than finger-wagging to keep those “corrupt hands” from the till. The president will have to knock some heads together, as well.And the hardest head belongs to Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s obdurate leader. He is the reason most world leaders have been leery of involving themselves in Lebanon’s economic crisis. Iran-backed Hezbollah has its tentacles in almost every aspect of the Lebanese state — including the Beirut port, where the blasts took place — and a powerful militia with which to protect its interests.In his press conference, Macron called on Hezbollah to back reforms and think of Lebanon’s interest rather those of Iran. But that would require Nasrallah to change the habit of a lifetime.And then, there are the Lebanese people. Traumatized by their latest tragedy and desperate for change, they will cling to Macron’s promises and want to see action before his Sept 1 return to Beirut. If he fails to deliver, the streets of Gemmayzeh may not be so welcoming the second time around.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:03:12 GMT

President's virus swagger fuels anger ahead of Belarus vote
As Kseniya Milya's grandfather lay dying of COVID-19 at a hospital in Belarus' capital of Minsk, the country's authoritarian leader was blithely dismissing the pandemic as “psychosis,” and recommending an unusual remedy: Have a regular shot of vodka and work hard in the fields. Like many other Belarusians angry with the government's cavalier approach to the pandemic, Milya joined large opposition protests ahead of Sunday's presidential vote in which President Alexander Lukashenko is seeking a sixth term. The outpouring of public discontent poses the most serious challenge yet to Lukashenko after 26 years in office.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 11:45:22 GMT

'The world exploded': Beirut blast takes a husband, father
Soha Saade had not seen her husband since Christmas. The coronavirus pandemic had kept 44-year-old Jihad in Nigeria, where he worked far from his family in Beirut. When smoke billowed outside the hospital window Tuesday, the couple lamented Beirut's pollution and disorder.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 11:26:42 GMT

What we know about the explosion in Beirut
Three days after a massive explosion rocked Beirut, killing at least 149 people and causing widespread devastation, rescuers are still searching for survivors and the government is investigating what caused the disaster. The government, which defaulted on its sovereign debt in March, has been negotiating an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund for months, but the talks faltered over Lebanese infighting and resistance to demands for reform.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 11:11:29 GMT

10 things you need to know today: August 7, 2020

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 10:56:00 GMT

How the U.S. Will Try to Extend the Arms Embargo on Iran
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Next week the U.S. will try to get the U.N. Security Council to do something it has been trying to get its allies to support for the last year: Extend the U.N.’s conventional arms embargo against Iran, which is slated to expire in October. The resolution will almost certainly fail, but that doesn’t mean America’s Iran policy has to be a failure.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. would introduce the resolution on Wednesday, a day before he announced that his senior envoy on Iran policy, Brian Hook, would be leaving. The U.N. Security Council would make an “absolute mockery” of its mission to maintain international peace and security, Pompeo said, “if it allowed the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell weapons freely.”Pompeo is not wrong. One of the many flaws of the 2015 Iran deal is that it allowed for the arms embargo to expire in the first place. That concession was in part at the behest of China and Russia, which were part of the negotiations, and the two nations are likely to use their veto at the Security Council to scuttle the resolution. Thus the U.S. strategy to extend the embargo is destined to fail.U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft has acknowledged as much. “Russia and China are going to be who they are,” she told me in an interview this week at the Aspen Security Forum. “I’m not going to be able to change their minds. However, what we can do is change the way other countries look to them and look at them, and that’s what’s important.” In other words, Pompeo’s strategy in the short term is to shame two great-power rivals at the U.N.But Pompeo has another card to play. If and when the U.S. loses the U.N. vote to extend the arms embargo, it could still theoretically impose it — “snap back” is the diplomatic term — through a provision of the 2015 nuclear deal that President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. As Pompeo told reporters Wednesday, that is “an option that’s available to the United States, and we’re going to do everything within America’s power to ensure that that arms embargo is extended.”On the surface, it’s a strange maneuver. The snap-back provision of the U.N. Security Council resolution that codified the Iran nuclear deal was designed as a tool for states that were a party to that agreement. As Anthony Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state and adviser to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, said this week at the Aspen Security Forum: “Snap back needs to be invoked by a participant in the deal.”Others disagree. Richard Goldberg, who managed the maximum pressure campaign against Iran at the U.S. National Security Council, told me the U.N. resolution that codified the nuclear deal “was drafted precisely to defend the U.S. right to snap back, in any scenario, at any time.” If Iran is in breach of its commitments, he said, the U.S. has the right to snap back previous resolutions that were lifted as a result of the nuclear deal — regardless of whether the U.S. remains a party to that agreement.Regardless of the legalities of the current or future conventional arms embargo against Iran, there is a very good chance that Russia and China will move to arm the Iranians anyway. International law has not stood in the way of these countries before. China has already begun discussions for closer security partnership with Iran.For now, Pompeo’s play at the U.N. is mainly symbolic. As Craft told me, the rest of the world will see that China and Russia “have blood on their hands.” But anyone who’s paid attention for the last 75 years probably knew that already.The most realistic strategy for the U.S. moving forward — under either Trump or Biden — will have to be unilateral. It’s foolish to expect the U.N. to promote security and peace in the Middle East when two of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council do not have the same interests as the U.S. and its allies in the region.A better approach is for the U.S. to use its Navy, its allies and its vast intelligence capabilities to interdict arms shipments to Iran. The U.S. has used this strategy before, under President George W. Bush against North Korea. It should consider it again when it comes to Iran.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 10:30:07 GMT

The Latest: Ship owner 1st to sue over Beirut port explosion
Lebanon’s state-run National News agency says a Lebanese businessman whose cruise ship was destroyed and in the Beirut port explosion and who had some staff members killed and wounded has filed a lawsuit against those who will be found responsible for this week's blast. Orient Queen owner Merhi Abou Merhi on Friday became the first person to sue over the Tuesday explosion that killed at least 154 people, wounded more than 5,000 and damaged wide parts of the Lebanese capital. Two Orient Queen employees, a Syrian and an Ethiopian, were killed and seven others were wounded in the blast.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 09:12:12 GMT

Karen Bass: the progressive congresswoman who could be Biden's vice-president
The Los Angeles representative, a top contender to be Biden’s running mate, is respected by both Democratic and Republican colleaguesIn Karen Bass’s home state, colleagues across the political spectrum sing her praises.Most of America is just getting to know the 66-year-old congresswoman from Los Angeles who in recent weeks emerged as a top contender to be Joe Biden’s vice-presidential running mate. But in California, Bass has built a reputation as a progressive and a pragmatist – a community organizer who fought police brutality and addiction in Los Angeles and a practical politician who helped dig the state out of a historical fiscal crisis in 2008.The congresswoman is “someone who can heal our country – not just from the pandemic, but also from the racial divisions, the economic divisions”, the legendary labor organizer Dolores Huerta told the Guardian.Biden is expected to announce his running mate in the coming days. When the former vice-president earlier this year committed to choosing a woman to join his ticket, public speculation immediately coalesced around Kamala Harris, the California senator who ran against him in the Democratic presidential primaries. Buzz also circled Susan Rice, the Obama administration national security adviser, and Val Demings, the Florida congresswoman. But in recent weeks, Californians who worked with Bass – including Huerta – have openly campaigned for her as vice-president, propelling her to the top of Biden’s shortlist.Bass’s supporters commend her fierce commitment to advancing social justice, and an easy charm that has helped her win over liberals and staunch conservatives alike. But others worry her politics are too far to the left to appeal to moderate voters, as the vice-presidential vetting process resurfaced some of her political controversies – including past comments about the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro that could alienate expats in the political quagmire of Florida. ‘She builds coalitions’Bass grew up in a Black, middle-class neighborhood Los Angeles, trained as a physician assistant and worked in an emergency room. As the crack epidemic hit LA, she began a substance abuse and treatment center – a non-profit that grew into the Community Coalition, which remains an influential advocacy group in the city.At a time when the government moved to further criminalize drug possession and violently police Black and brown neighborhoods, Bass argued addiction was a public health crisis and advocated against the infamous 1994 “tough on crime” law that Biden helped write. She lobbied to replace liquor shops in South LA with housing and grocery stores, battled to build more schools and campaigned to keep children from being forced into foster care.She won a seat in the California assembly in 2004 and was elected speaker of the assembly two years later, becoming the first Black woman to lead a state legislative house.In the state capital, Sacramento, she found herself at the center of a wholly different kind of crisis. Republicans and Democrats had been locked in a months-long stalemate over how to address a m deficit in the aftermath of the Great Recession. “When Karen walked into the negotiations, it just changed the dynamics in the room,” said Mike Villines, who was the assembly’s Republican minority leader. “She would really listen to everybody, and at first – we even thought – is this a trick?”Bass held firmly to her goals to minimize cuts to education and healthcare, said Darrell Steinberg, the mayor of Sacramento and the Democratic leader of the state senate at the time. “Yet she was also the epitome of ‘you can disagree strongly without being disagreeable,’” he said. Steinberg, Bass, Villines and their colleagues won a John F Kennedy Profiles in Courage award for the compromise they reached in February 2009.The trust Bass built in Los Angeles and in Sacramento propelled her to Congress in 2010. She was elected to lead one of the most diverse districts in California – her constituency in Los Angeles is 25% white, 25% Black, 40% Latino and 8% Asian American. “At a moment when we need to help rebuild our country from crisis, Karen is a builder – she builds coalitions,” Huerta said.Bass was elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus in 2018. And in the aftermath of protests following the death of George Floyd, she is leading her party’s effort to reform the police, and, to an extent, reverse the legacy of Democratic policies that unequally incarcerated Black and brown Americans.The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act she helped develop passed in Congress and was backed by every Democratic representative and three Republicans. The bill, which is unlikely to be taken up by the Republican-led Senate, curbs “qualified immunity”, a legal provision that shields police. It makes lynching a federal crime, and incentivizes local police departments to ban chokeholds – but it doesn’t defund the police or direct resources away from law enforcement, as activists have long demanded.“No, I don’t think it’s time to defund the police,” Bass told Fox LA, though she echoed an argument that many supporters of defunding make – that police shouldn’t be the ones responding to every type of emergency. When the government underfunds social programs and healthcare, “police are left to pick up the pieces, and that’s wrong”, she said. “They’re not social workers – why should they be dealing with social, economic and health problems.” Bass and BidenThough Biden’s views on policing have evolved since he spearheaded his crime bill, the duo’s politics still diverge significantly. She supports the ambitious Green New Deal to tackle the climate crisis, and Medicare for All as a solution to the nation’s healthcare woes. He prefers more moderate options.But the two also have a lot in common personally, and philosophically. She, like him, was struck by tragedy early in her political career. In 2006, less than two years after she was inaugurated to the California state assembly, her 23-year old daughter, Emilia, and son-in-law Michael died in a car accident.Bass has discussed the loss with Biden, whose wife and one-year-old daughter died in a car crash in 1972. “The most difficult part of that was – and it was the same with him – when those accidents happened, both of us were in public life,” Bass said in an interview with Ozy. “The world is watching you grieving.”Like Biden, Bass said she struggled to “carry on” afterwards. “I began to understand how despair led people to just cash it in,” Biden wrote in his memoir about the period following his wife and daughter’s death. For Bass, it was the memory of her daughter that “allowed her to continue”, she said. “Because she would have been very upset with me if I didn’t continue.”Both politicians also share a commitment to bipartisanship – a motivation or obligation to reach out to those they don’t agree with, and look for common values. The same way Biden’s supporters celebrate his goofball affability, Bass’s colleagues and friends praise her disarming charm. “You can put Karen anywhere, even in the most rightwing, ultra-conservative district, and she’ll get some of the people there into conversation with them,” said Fabian Núñez, who was the California assembly speaker before Bass.“She’s genuinely very, very nice,” Steinberg told the Guardian. “She’s good people.”Villines, who remains a Republican, said that nonetheless “I would be very comfortable with Karen in high positions in government, because I know she absolutely is a real person who’s been through some really difficult things and who’s really just trying to get things done.”Even the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy – a Trump ally who shares almost no political common ground with progressive Bass – has called her his “favorite Democrat” for her ability to negotiate.It may seem a remarkable contradiction then that progressives have openly endorsed Bass as a champion of “transformative change” who would give liberals a voice at the White House. “She knows where to hold the line,” Steinberg explained.It may help to understand her to know that Bass earned brown belts in taekwondo and hapkido. “Remember those old Bruce Lee movies? When somebody who had watched a Bruce Lee movie would think they knew how to fight – with no discipline, no control – they would come in just flailing, swinging,” she told the LA Times in 2009. “You should have goals; it should be clear where the beginning, middle and end game is, and that’s what I felt I was taught.” Public vettingBass’s political goals at the moment don’t seem to include an eventual run for president – and she says it never has. “You can look back in my life, and I think it’s pretty clear that I didn’t set out to run for president,’’ she said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I have always been focused on work.”Now that she is a top candidate for veep, her public vetting has been “a very interesting process; a trip down memory lane”, she joked. Her past work in Cuba has come under particular scrutiny.In the 1970s, Bass worked for the Venceremos Brigade, a joint venture of Fidel Castro’s government and Students for a Democratic Society, the leftist, antiwar group in the US. Bass has said that she helped build housing and healthcare facilities with the group, to help the Cuban people. She’s also faced criticism for referring to Castro as “Comandante en Jefe” – a title that Cuban expats in the US denounce – when the dictator died in 2016, and for eulogizing Oneil Marion Cannon, a top member of the Communist Party USA as a “friend and mentor”.Republicans have seized on an opportunity to paint Bass as a Castro supporter, and a communist, in particular to Cuban Americans in swing states like Florida. Bass argues her position on Cuba “is really no different than the position of the Obama administration”. She accompanied Obama in 2016 on his historic visit to the country. Bass has also stressed that she is not a communist, but said she appreciated Cannon’s work for his community in Los Angeles and his commitment to campaigning for Black and brown candidates.Amid heightened scrutiny of her past, the Los Angeles Times also revealed that Bass has earned consulting fees from a community non-profit that she founded, and that her campaign had funded. Bass has maintained that her income and the campaign donations are unrelated, and the non-profit has corroborated her position.Another concern for critics is Bass’s effusive speech at the 2010 opening of the Church of Scientology’s headquarters in LA, when she praised the group’s founder L Ron Hubbard. She told a crowd of 6,000, “your creed is a universal creed and one that speaks to all people everywhere”.In a statement, Bass said she was looking for an “area of agreement” with the church, and in the decade since “published first-hand accounts in books, interviews and documentaries have exposed this group”. Scientology defectors have alleged intimidation, abuse and human trafficking. “Just so you all know, I proudly worship at First New Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in South LA,” Bass noted in her statement.Huerta, who supported Kamala Harris in the presidential primaries but recently published an op-ed endorsing Bass for vice-president, said the discussions around the congresswoman’s past had created a “fantasma”, or ghost, “designed to frighten supporters”.“It’s ridiculous,” she said “You have Donald Trump who praised the dictator in North Korea,” she said. When the president has failed to condemn, and even exalted leaders who have overseen humanitarian atrocities, Huerta said, “it’s silly” for Republicans to fixate on Bass’s record on Cuba.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 09:00:32 GMT

Putin’s Got Big Problems in Russia’s Provinces
MOSCOW—The city of Khabarovsk, a sprawling, industrial metropolis about 5,000 miles east of the capital—the Bolsheviks turned it into a hub for serving Siberian prison camps, in the middle of nowhere by design—is about as far from the seat of Russian power as geographically possible. But it’s suddenly at the center of Russian politics these days. For the past three weeks, thousands of people have come out daily in Khabarovsk to protest the country’s top-down rule, what President Vladimir Putin once called his “vertical of power. “Wake up, cities, our Motherland is in trouble,” protesters chanted in the rain one Friday evening. Banners that read, “Putin, you lost my trust!” and “Down with the Tsar!” floated above people’s heads.Despite the Kremlin’s best efforts to hide them, problems have been bubbling up in Russia’s provinces, transforming local issues into the most dynamic arena for dissent, protest, and opposition in the country’s political system and fueling Russia’s version of post-lockdown unrest. The arrest of Khabarovsk’s popular regional governor sparked the anti-Putin uprising that has drawn up to 60,000 people into the streets in this usually sleepy backwater. The arrested governor was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, which had for years been loyal to Putin. Yet even the party’s leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, told The Daily Beast that the provincial protests could spread, as people are fed up with the lies and media manipulation in the Putin system. “This is a genuine, wonderful, peaceful protest, but federal television channels do not cover them, and that offends people,” he said.Millions of Russians are still watching the Far East rallies online. People are outraged by unemployment, corruption, pollution, and failing government. “For as long as we have a one-party system, you will have the Khabarovsk protests,” Zhirinovsky recently declared from the tribune of the State Duma. “I have suggested to them a long time ago to have at least two parties, but they want to have the majority,” Zhirinovsky told The Daily Beast about Putin’s United Russia party. Putin continues the tradition of single-party system that began under Lenin, Zhirinovsky said.Two thousand miles away from Khabarovsk sits another provincial city, Norilsk, with its giant factory that is the source of a fifth of the world’s nickel and half of the precious metal palladium. Norilsk is the world’s northernmost city and also Russia’s most polluted; visitors stepping off a plane are greeted by air that leaves an unforgettable metallic taste in the mouth. But even by Norilsk’s own abysmal standards, this summer was a horrific one for the environment: Its factory, Norilsk Nickel, spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of red-hued diesel fuel into what locals now call “rivers of blood.” The rain smells of chemicals. The diesel fuel spill was caused by the collapse of a rust-covered storage tank at a heat and power plant on May 29. Local bureaucrats and the factory kept quiet about the disaster for two days as the red, oily rivers spread pollutants through the fragile tundra environment in what Greenpeace would later call the “biggest environmental catastrophe in the history of Russia’s Arctic.” Authorities initially tried to hide the disaster, in the same way state television channels have attempted to ignore the protests in Khabarovsk. Russians only learned of the spill from social media. Six weeks later, with still no word of any official reprimand for the spill, the factory dumped another round of toxic waste—this time, intentionally—right onto the tundra.Two reporters from the independent paper Novaya Gazeta, Yelena Kostyuchenko and Yuri Kozyrev, had traveled to Norilsk after the spill to see the pollution with their own eyes. The reporters discovered a stream with orange bubbles and a lake covered in white foam, surrounded by dead trees. But it had nothing to do with the diesel spill. “Two large pipes were pumping and dumping white toxic waste with a sharp chemical smell onto the tundra when we arrived,” Kostyuchenko told The Daily Beast. Novaya Gazeta’s report raised the alarm with local prosecutors and police, so the factory sent a bulldozer to quickly dismantle the pipes. Then, the bulldozer accidentally crushed a police car while backing up. Environmentalists witnessed a wild scene: A huge number of Norilsk Nickel’s security services were demolishing their factory’s pipes in front of police and officials from the emergency ministry and Russia’s natural resources regulatory agency, Rospotrebnadzor.Meanwhile, some Russian politicians started to call for the Kremlin to take control of the factory—owned by the country’s richest oligarch, Vladimir Potanin—and nationalize it. Potanin, a former member of the Communist Party, obtained the Norilsk factory on the cheap during the privatization of the 1990s. Since then, he’s seemed untouchable. After all, according to Kremlin-watcher Mikhail Zygar, the billionaire has always paid up for problems at the factory in the only currency that counts: loyalty to the Russian president. “People like Potanin are happy to pay for all [Putin’s] projects, for anything he ever wants,” said Zygar, author of All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin. Soviet and post-Soviet bureaucrats have a long history of attempting to hide the truth about disasters from the public, no matter how deadly—most famously after the 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl. Last year, an experimental missile exploded in the Arctic, releasing radioactivity into the air, and the official reaction was silence. So, too, in the first days after the fuel spill. Officials were even reluctant to break the bad news to Putin himself. “One has to earn the right to report bad news to Vladimir Vladimirovich,” said Sergei Markov, a political analyst close to the Kremlin. “It must have taken a few days before the decision-makers on various steps of power figured out who would be the one to break the news.”On the fifth day after the fuel spill, four people lined up shoulder to shoulder to report the truth about the accident to Putin in an online meeting: the oligarch Potanin; Svetlana Radionova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor; Yevgeny Zinichev, the minister of emergency situations; and Viktor Uss, the Krasnoyarsk regional governor.Zinichev told the president that “the event itself, the emergency situation, was localized on June 1. We have installed booms, so there is no development.” Radionova, in contrast, talked about “unprecedented” pollution. “We registered an increase by dozens of thousands of times,” after the diesel fuel spilled into the rivers, she told Putin.Potanin was the last to speak. He promised to dip into his wealth and pay for the damage. The accident would cost “not a ruble from the state budget.” Putin wanted to know how much, exactly, the company was going to pay. The billionaire paused.Putin pressed Potanin on how much money he was willing to pay to compensate for the damage. “Billions and billions” of rubles, or tens of millions of dollars, the oligarch finally told the president. “And how much does one reserve tank cost that you are going to replace now? If you replaced it on time, there would not have been such damage and such cost to the environment,” the president replied.According to Forbes Real Time, which gauges wealth, in the weeks after the accident Potanin’s net worth dropped by more than .6 billion, but he is currently worth billion, which still allows him the title of Russia’s richest man. The World Wide Fund for Nature has addressed an open letter to Potanin, calling him personally to “take the full responsibility” for polluting the Arctic. But money for the clean-up aside, Potanin is unlikely to face real repercussions for the spill. Earlier this summer Putin’s inspector, Radionova, flew to Norilsk to calculate fines for the factory—but, according to Transparency International, she flew there on Potanin’s own Bombardier Challenger private jet, instead of taking a regular flight. Radionova has also been accused of corruption by the foundation of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which revealed documents for luxurious real estate in Moscow and Nice that suggest Radionova is the owner. “Such wealth cannot be explained. It is so outrageous,” Navalny said in his report on YouTube, viewed by more than 3 million people. Meanwhile, experts warn that Russia is ill-equipped to prevent another environmental disaster. After the diesel spill, a member of the board of directors at Norilsk Nickel, Yevgeny Shvarts, admitted on a television talk show that the storage tank that had collapsed was the newest piece of equipment at his company. “This is terrifying: One of Russia’s richest companies considers a tank made in 1985 their newest piece of equipment. That means things are much worse than we thought,” the show’s host, Vladimir Slivyak, told to The Daily Beast. He expressed concern that many other Russian factories are also storing diesel fuel in even older tanks: “Such accidents might take place any time.” 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.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 08:37:22 GMT

Warnings flashed for years of explosives at heart of Beirut
At least 10 times over the past six years, authorities from Lebanon’s customs, military, security agencies and judiciary raised alarm that a massive stockpile of explosive chemicals was being kept with almost no safeguard at the port in the heart of Beirut, newly surfaced documents show. President Michel Aoun, in office since 2016, said Friday he was first told of the dangerous stockpile nearly three weeks ago and immediately ordered military and security agencies to do “what was needed.”

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 08:15:38 GMT

Russia's race for virus vaccine raises concerns in the West
Russia boasts that it’s about to become the first country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine, with mass vaccinations planned as early as October using shots that are yet to complete clinical trials -- and scientists worldwide are sounding the alarm that the headlong rush could backfire. Moscow sees a Sputnik-like propaganda victory, recalling the Soviet Union’s launch of the world’s first satellite in 1957. “I’m worried that Russia is cutting corners so that the vaccine that will come out may be not just ineffective, but also unsafe,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global public health law expert at Georgetown University.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 07:02:06 GMT

US: Border tunnel appears to be 'most sophisticated'
An incomplete tunnel found stretching from Mexico to Arizona appears to be “the most sophisticated tunnel in U.S. history," authorities said. The tunnel intended for smuggling ran from a neighborhood in San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico, to San Luis, Arizona, where it stopped short of reaching the surface. It was built in an area that's not conducive to tunnels because of the terrain, and it had a ventilation system, water lines, electrical wiring, a rail system and extensive reinforcement, federal officials say.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 05:07:28 GMT

Portland protesters cause mayhem again, police officer hurt
About 200 people, some wielding homemade shields, clashed with police early Friday for the third consecutive night as two other Black Lives Matter rallies proceeded peacefully elsewhere in the city, authorities said. The demonstration with unrest came hours after the city's Democratic mayor pleaded for protesters to stay off the streets, saying those who barricaded the doors to a police precinct the night before and tried to set it ablaze were not demonstrators, but criminals. Mayor Ted Wheeler said the violent protesters are also serving as political “props” for President Donald Trump in a divisive election-season where the president is hammering on a law-and-order message.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 05:04:16 GMT

US kids, parents perform DIY tests for coronavirus science
How many U.S. children and teens are infected? “The bottom line is we just don’t know yet the degree to which children can transmit the virus,” said Dr. Tina Hartert of Vanderbilt University, who is leading the government-funded study. Evidence from the U.S., China and Europe shows children are less likely to become infected with the virus than adults and also less likely to become seriously ill when they do get sick.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 05:00:51 GMT

Traditional Afghan council meets on release of 400 Taliban
A traditional council met Friday in Kabul to decide whether to release a final 400 Taliban prisoners, the last hurdle to negotiations between Afghanistan’s political leadership and the Taliban under a peace deal the insurgents signed with the United States earlier this year. The meeting of the council of elders, known as Loya Jirga, was initially expected to last three days but could end as early as Saturday. The Kabul-Taliban negotiations are seen as a critical step toward lasting peace in Afghanistan and a roadmap to what the country might look like after decades of war, with the Taliban joining the political mainstream.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 04:55:44 GMT

Almost 150 extrajudicial killings by Malian, Burkinabe troops: UN
Almost 150 people were extrajudicially killed by Malian and Burkinabe security forces in Mali between April and June, the UN said Thursday. A 2012 revolt in northern Mali has since spread to the centre of the poor Sahel country, as well as to Burkina Faso and Niger despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops. The Mali-based United Nations mission, MINUSMA, reported "an increase in serious human rights violations attributable to the Malian security forces", which it held responsible for 94 such killings over the three-month period.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 03:01:06 GMT

Hagerty vs. Bradshaw in race to succeed US Sen. Alexander
The race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander in November will feature a matchup between a Republican candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump and a Black activist who pulled off an astonishing upset victory over the Democratic establishment's choice — with a campaign war chest of less than ,000. Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty fended off a challenge from Nashville trauma surgeon Manny Sethi in Thursday's Republican primary, while Marquita Bradshaw handily defeated Army helicopter pilot James Mackler, who raised more than .1 million and drew endorsements from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “We didn’t raise a million dollars, but the dollars that we raised came from hard-working people in Tennessee and around this nation,” Bradshaw told The Associated Press in an interview.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 01:50:42 GMT

Kim visits North Korea flood zone, orders shelter, food aid
Leader Kim Jong Un visited parts of southern North Korea where days of torrential rains have flooded hundreds of houses and vast areas of agricultural land, state media reported Friday. The last time state media reported such a visit was in September 2015, when he inspected recovery work at a flood-hit northeast city, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. It forced North Korea to close its border with China, its biggest trading partner, in January.

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 01:28:33 GMT

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