Catlin was lining up for a shot at Olympic gold. And an elite mathematical mind would open opportunities off the track. But torment lurked behind the success.
According to scientists' projections, Charleston, South Carolina will be constantly and completely flooded by 2100. And according to the Weather Channel, that'll look like this.
We all know the stereotypes: suburbia is dull, conformist and about "keeping up with the Joneses." But what about the suburbs of utopians and renegades?
When videocassette recorders entered American homes in the '70s, more than 75 percent of the tapes sold were porn. The breaking apart of the Bell phone system in 1984 spawned the explosion in 900 phone sex numbers. And so it was no surprise that the dawn of the internet was giving rise to the same kind of innovation, demand and outrage that had been going on for eons.
The best things in life can multitask — and this GOSPACE SuperCharger does just that. It sports two USB ports, one USB-C port and a Qi wireless charging pad that can charge up to four devices at rapid speeds thanks to its impressive 10,000 mAh battery.
The Golden State Killer case has triggered a boom in "genetic genealogy" for solving crimes. But how hard is it to find people by sleuthing in their family trees?
As a child, Jackman dreamed of receiving a Guinness World Record for an obscure talent. Meanwhile, Fallon knows that there's no time like the present to give your dreams another go.
The security feature leverages a 360 dash cam built into Tesla vehicles to record damage and attempted break-ins. It rolled out in February, and it's already earning its keep.
Longevity scientist David Sinclair believes too many of us end up in old age as "the living dead." He's searching for drugs that can turn back the clock on aging — if regulators let him.
Melanin is the universal pigment that colors our skin and hair, peacock feathers and butterfly wings. But for Neri Oxman, the head of MIT's Mediated Matter research group, melanin is the foundation of our future — and our future habitats.
Directors Trevor Rothman and Alex Kugelman knocked it out of the park with this short, employing an uneasy combination of absurdity and dread. We can only hope that "The Last Ripe Hass" never mirrors real life too accurately.
As winter turns to spring, you're going to want a water resistant jacket. This one's guaranteed to keep you dry on your next run — and it fits in your pocket.
Americans see hoaxes and plots everywhere. But why? Is the constant stream of conspiracy theories a side effect of social media? Are conspiracy theories a product of the increasing polarization of politics? Or have they always been around and for some reason we just notice them more now?
"I never think what I'm doing is something artistic," Claire Denis says. "Cinema is something very carnal, very concrete. It's not difficult and it only requires very little technique."
DeAndre Hunter will never need to buy a beer in Charlottesville, Virginia ever again — the UVA Cavaliers became national champs in overtime thanks to his incredible shot.
"Is this guy bothering you?" may well be the most storied move in pickup culture, far predating whatever some dude in a fedora taught you about "negging." When it works, you've become an instant hero. When it doesn't, oh boy is it ever a mess.
You've got a little under a month to file your taxes in the US. Most people should be able to file their taxes digitally and painlessly for free, but plenty will end up paying for the privilege anyway.
Facebook’s public policy director Neil Potts and Google’s public policy and government relations counsel Alexandria Walden will speak before the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee for a hearing on hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism.
Online radicalization, specifically among white nationalists, is not exactly a new issue. However, since the New Zealand mosque shooting, which left 50 people dead, the rising concerns over the spread of white nationalism on the internet has been thrust to the forefront of the conversation. Read more...
It can take gaming from a hobby to a lifestyle, change the entire aesthetic of an office, and hell, can get you through the dragging hours of work when you know the rest of your group is at happy hour.
The best part? Getting a new one doesn't have to be some huge, bank-breaking purchase. The market is filled with budget-friendly flat screens, curved screens, and gaming monitors that short you on price, not features. One standout affordable brand is ViewSonic, and select monitors and projectors are 20% off on Amazon today.
We've pulled out a few of the best deals, but you can shop the whole sale here.Read more...
There are some great tablets out there, but when you’re looking to buy one for your child you likely want to narrow it down to the more kid-friendly options. Amazon Fire Kids Edition tablets have features and specs that make them a great device for kids.
Fire 7, Fire HD 8, and Fire HD 10 Kids Edition tablets are all on sale at Amazon — you’ll save $30 or $40, depending on the model.
Fire Kids Edition tablets are not toys — they're fully functioning tablets, but have top-of-the-line parental controls. As a parent, you can personalize screen time limits, set educational goals, filter age-appropriate content, and manage web browsing and content use. Read more...
Open up your phone and take a quick scan of the apps you have installed? Are any of them new?
Chances are most of the apps you have on your phone aren't. Most people are "choosing to download more established, mature apps" as opposed to "upstart apps" observes Eric Feng, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, and former CTO of Hulu and Flipboard.
Compiling data from Apple's iTunes App Charts and app analytics firm App Annie, Feng astutely concludes that the great app gold rush may be over.
With over 2 million apps available in Apple's App Store, the likelihood of a young app breaking into its "top 30" and staying there is no longer as likely as it once was, says Feng. Read more...
Lil Nas X's viral hit "Old Town Road" has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The TikTok mainstay — which is definitely a country song, you monsters — shot from 15 to the top spot, no doubt pushed by the remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus that came out on Friday.
"Old Town Road" was also No. 1 on the R&B/hip-hop and rap charts. It remained absent from the country chart, from which it was cruelly removed after failing to "embrace enough elements of today's country music." (This was not very cowboy of Billboard.) Read more...
Blackpink's "Kill This Love" has set a new YouTube record for the fastest music video to reach 100 million views. The video hit the mark in just two days and 14 hours. The female K-pop group joins the record-breaking ranks with Ariana Grande, BTS, Taylor Swift, and Eminem. Read more...
Between the rigid cadence and the flattened vocal range, there's something kind of charming about text-to-speech readers.
One man recently attempted to imitate a text-to-speech reader while reading the intro to The Flash. In a follow-up video, he demonstrated how others can do similar imitations by carefully manipulating their voices.
His impression is unnervingly spot-on. Watch and feel jealous. Read more...
A lot of us pet owners see our furry counterparts as more than just pets — they’re basically our children. And what kind of pet-parents are we if we don’t have eyes on them for the majority of the day? If you have to hold back tears every time you leave your pet at home to go to your day job, we have a product that’ll ease the pain and guilt.
The Petcube Bites Pet Camera and Treat Dispenser is currently $44 off on Amazon and is the perfect device to score you the coveted “pet-parent of the year” award. Usually retailing for $249, you can grab one of these for just $204.99. Read more...
Who should end up on the Iron Throne? We've got some ideas.
If Game of Thrones actually ends with someone on the eponymous Throne and not the mass-zombification of every character we've come to know and love, then there can only be one answer for whom should sit upon the Iron Throne: Daenerys Targaryen.
Listen up, fives: Daenerys Stormborn was commanding a whole-ass Khalasar before Jon Snow had even left Castle Black to meet his first girlfriend. She studied the culture and language of the Dothraki to earn their respect and love as Khaleesi. She inspired loyalty that lasted well beyond Khal Drogo’s death as the Khalasar accompanied her to Qarth and even across the Narrow Sea, which no Dothraki had ever crossed before. Read more...
Watch out for tax scams popping up in your email inbox. They can often be rigged to secretly install malware onto your computer.
As the April 15th filing deadline approaches, IBM says it's recently detected a wave of tax-themed phishing messages targeting both businesses and personal email addresses. The emails have been crafted to deliver a Trojan called Trickbot, which can steal bank account information from your internet sessions.
According to IBM, the scammers have been delivering the Trickbot Trojan by pretending to send emails from well-known payroll and HR firms such as Paychex and ADP. Unlike shoddy spam email campaigns, the messages from the scammers will generally be free of spelling or grammar mistakes. Read more...
If you like to catch up on the news each day in a little more depth, but without having to turn on the TV, Amazon has a solution for you using its smart speakers. Alexa will now offer to read you the news in a lot more detail.
As Engadget reports, Alexa users in the US can benefit from a new feature which allows the voice assistant to convey the news in detail. It's a feature that's been made possible thanks to partnerships with Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, Newsy and NPR, from where the news will be sourced.
Alexa users can ask "tell me the news" or "play news" from any of the news outlets mentioned above and detailed audio will be played. If you don't care about a particular news story it's possible to skip over it and move on to whatever is next in the queue. Read more...
Have you ever come home from a wonderful holiday in the early hours of the morning, and all you want to do is curl up in your own bed, except you can't, because your home could double as an igloo?
You end up shivering under multiple duvets until the temperature slowly rises to something less arctic. It doesn't need to be this way, though. Not with a Hive smart thermostat.
Hive lets you can take control of your heating and hot water anytime, and anywhere, with your mobile, tablet, or laptop. Set heating and hot water schedules with up to six daily time slots, boost your heating for up to six hours, prevent frozen pipes with automatic frost protection, and more. Read more...
If you've ever fancied working alongside a Game of Thrones star, you might well be in luck.
Everyone's favourite Stark assassin Maisie Williams has announced she's starting work on a short film — and she's put out an open call for people to collaborate with.
Williams' project is tied in with Daisie — the creative networking app she co-founded and launched in 2018.
Here's the video Daisie's Twitter account posted on Sunday:
Maisie Williams and Bill Milner are making a short film. But they can’t do it alone.
Apply to join their Daisie team if you have a way with words, camera, hair, makeup, styling, music, design or even acting#LDNcreatespic.twitter.com/BFDxkL17vf
We've all been there. You've got your friends over and everyone is feeling the music, but the speakers keep cutting out or coming unplugged. It's enough to ruin the vibes that you had so carefully cultivated. It might even be bad enough to force your friends to pack up their things and leave. This might seem harsh, but it happens.
It's at this point, disappointed and alone, that you should turn to the Ultimate Ears Blast speaker. The portable WiFi/Bluetooth speaker has immersive 360 degrees sound and hands-free voice control, with Amazon Alexa built-in. So the next time you decide to play host, you and your friends can blast your favourite tunes with just the power of your voice. Read more...
Since the Nintendo Switch hit the scene, it has been a dominant piece of hardware in the games space. Beloved for killer first-party titles like Super Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, plus its ease of use, it has been able to satisfy most picky gamers.
One of the best parts of the system is its portability, and if you find yourself on the go, you're going to need the right accessories to fit your needs. These are some of the best cases for the Nintendo Switch: Read more...
The Washington-based PowerA is one of biggest accessory manufacturers in gaming, with products available for Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC, through every possible retailer. And when it comes to the Switch, they haven't skimped on quality. The Everywhere Messenger Bag is one of the bigger means of transporting your Switch, games, and any additional accessories you have for it. And for £29.99, bigger definitely means better. The shoulder slung bag allows you to pack everything up, from controllers to the charging/video dock, and transport it in one case. There's also the added bonus of a small, hard shell zippered case for the Switch itself, which turns this bag into a great two-for-one deal.
We have seen great offers on a wide range of devices in the Amazon Spring Sale, with deals on everything from TVs to toothbrushes. There isn't a clearly defined theme to the sale, but there are naturally quite a lot of gardening, DIY, and spring cleaning deals, as we look to get things in shape for the summer.
Those long summer nights are just around the corner. They are so close, we can almost taste the charcoal-crusted sausages and cold beer. It's therefore time to start sorting out the garden, before it's too late and you're left with an overgrown mess than nobody is going to want to spend an afternoon relaxing in. Read more...
The iconic Addams Family is all set to return to our screens this Halloween in the Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan-directed computer animated The Addams Family.
It's stacked with an incredible voice cast including Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Allison Janney, Nick Kroll, Finn Wolfhard, and Chloë Grace Moretz.
Just be ready to snap your fingers to their classic tune.
The Addams Family hits theaters on October 11. Read more...
And Noah gives her the send-off she deserves. Discussing the report that Trump thought she was too soft on immigration, Noah quips, "How are you going to get rid of 'kids-in-cages' woman for being 'too nice'? That's like firing a cat for not displaying its anus enough." Read more...
Joffrey. Cersei. Walder Frey. Meryn Trant. Tywin Lannister. The Red Woman. Beric Dondarrion. Thoros of Myr. Ilyn Payne. The Mountain.
She whispers their names, one by one, every night before she goes to sleep. Arya Stark's greatest driving force is vengeance, and those names along with a handful of others comprise her infamous kill list that keeps her pushing onward in the face of tremendous hardship.
Each one of them wronged her, hurt her family, or hurt her friends at some point or another, and while many of the names she's added to her list over the years have been crossed off by her own actions or the actions of others, Arya has quite a bit of work left to do in the final season of Game of Thrones. Read more...
When attending a conference or company-wide party, you might've gotten a promo code to take a ride-share car for a discount or even a free ride if you order a Lyft or Uber to a certain location or venue through the ride-hailing app.
On Tuesday, Uber overhauled its discount ride program — now it's called Uber Vouchers. It's a separate way for customers to pay for a ride. As a passenger, the discounted or free ride lives within the Payments section of the Uber app. You order an Uber as usual, but the Voucher discount or free fare offer will come up as a payment option, if applicable.
To start off the new payment method, more than 100 businesses are offering Vouchers. Some of those companies are TGI Fridays, Live Nation, the Golden State Warriors, MGM Resorts, Sprint, Freshworks, Westfield, and Allstate. Read more...
Drop your plans this Easter and get your hands on the most immersive Nintendo Labo to date. This Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04: VR kit combines pass-and-play multiplayer, DIY fun, and family-friendly play for a unique first VR experience. It comes with Toy-Con VR Goggles, Toy-Con Blaster, Toy-Con Elephant, Toy-Con Camera, Toy-Con Bird, and more. It will be released on April 12, 2019, so pre-order yours today to be one of the first to enjoy hours of fun with your family during the Easter holidays.
China plans to put an end to cryptocurrency mining in the country, Reuters reported Tuesday citing a "draft list of industrial activities" China's state planning agency looks to put a stop on.
The decision doesn't appear to be final — the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is seeking public opinions on a revised list of industries that will either be encouraged, restricted or eliminated. Bitcoin now falls in that last category.
According to Reuters, the NDRC didn't give a date or any details on how, exactly, Bitcoin mining should be eliminated — but that would mean that Bitcoin mining is to cease immediately. Read more...
If you've not yet watched the final episode of Fleabag Season 2, then be warned — spoilers abound.
It's been 18 hours since I watched the final ever episode of Fleabag. But, even now, one day on, there's one line — just two words, actually — that I cannot shake from my mind.
Two devastating words that cut me to my core as I watched Andrew Scott whisper them to our eponymous heroine in a bus shelter: "It'll pass." Just seconds before, Fleabag had uttered three very different words to the man who'll henceforth be known as "hot priest."
A sale is much like a marathon. It's crucial to make a good start, but it's more important to keep a consistent pace throughout the race, and leave a little bit of energy for a big finish.
The Amazon Spring Sale certainly began strongly, but crucially it looks to be keeping up the pace with a bunch of new deals to be grabbed. We have highlighted the best of these, including great offers on wearable technology and laptops.
In this round-up you can save on Amazon devices, De'Longhi coffee machines, Samsung tablets, Fitbit smartwatches, HP laptops, and more. All the biggest brands are here, with chances to save on a wide range of devices. Read more...
Apple might not launch a 16/16.5-inch MacBook Pro for at least a year or more according to a new report from reliable leaker of Apple things, Ming-Chi Kuo (via MacRumors).
Same goes for a new version of the iPad, which will be 10 or 12 inches in size. But the good news is that a new, 31.6-inch 6K display from Apple is still on track to launch in the second or third quarter of this year.
The new report is a bit hard to follow, so here's some background. In February, Kuo said Apple would launch a completely new MacBook Pro with a display that's 16 or 16.5 inches in size. He also said the company is working on a 31.6-inch, 6K display with a mini LED-like backlight design. Finally, he predicted the launch of new iPad Pro models, a new iPad mini, and a new, 10.2-inch iPad model — and Apple indeed launched a new, 10.5-inch iPad Air and a new iPad mini in March. All of that was supposed to happen in 2019. Read more...
Three hours is a long time to sit in one seat without going to the bathroom — even if you do have the latest Avengers movie to distract you.
Well, good news — the cast of Endgame has some tips on how to get around this particular issue.
"Well, Mark said that you should wear a diaper," says Scarlett Johansson in the Jimmy Kimmel Live! clip above. "Then you don't have to get up. But you're also sitting in your own urine..."
Paul Rudd, meanwhile, has a slightly different — albeit equally gross — suggestion.
"Well, not having seen the film, I would say get one of those giant tubs of popcorn, and then just like lower it under the seat in the middle of the movie," he says. Read more...
John Bradley is best known to us as the kindhearted, bookish Samwell Tarly from Game of Thrones.
He spoke to Conan O'Brien about a speech he delivered at the GoT wrap party in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
"As somebody who grew up overweight and kind of unhappy because of it, and thinking that life was going to pass you by because of it, and all the times where you go to bed and you think, I'd give anything to wake up and not have this weight [...] while I was feeling that about myself, David and Dan — our producers and everybody else connected with the show — they were looking for me," Bradley told O'Brien. "They were looking for exactly me." Read more...
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Nike’s hard-to-get running shoes have a cult following among sneaker nerds and marathon runners alike, and now you can grab yourself a pair in sweet new colors.
When Nike released its first generation of the Vaporfly 4% — with a promise to improve running economy by 4 percent — sneaker scientists rushed to the lab to put them to the test and studies found these kicks actually do make you run faster. You’ll want to secure a pair in this season’s hottest new colorway, Black/Crimson, at Eastbay stat. Read more...
A group of Hong Kong democracy leaders are found guilty for their involvement in mass rallies at a trial that sparked renewed alarm over shrinking political freedoms under an assertive China https://t.co/MIHF0aUBxvpic.twitter.com/N6zDnOUqnu
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayiip Erdogan are holding a joint press conference following their meeting in Moscow.
A number of bilateral documents on various subjects and interest areas are set to be signed during the visit.
The two leaders are expected to conduct a detailed exchange of views on a range of matters concerning Russian-Turkish relations, including the implementation of joint strategic energy projects. The allies will also compare their attitudes and stances on major regional and international issues, including Washington's plans in Syria and the delivery of Russian S-400 air defence systems to Turkey.
Illegal leaks of classified information have reportedly reached "record high levels" during the Trump administration, according to a nonprofit group citing DOJ stats.
"Agencies transmitted 120 leak referrals to the Justice Department in 2017, and 88 leak referrals in 2018, for an average of 104 per year," the Federation of American Scientists reported, citing numbers issued by the Justice Department. "By comparison, the average number of leak referrals during the Obama Administration (2009–2016) was 39 per year."
WNU Editor: The Trump administration does not have many friends in establishment Washington. Leaks are usually a barometer on where people's loyalties lie.
Three Russian ships docked in Manila, the Philippines for a five-day port call on Monday aimed at improving navy-to-navy relations amid heightened tensions in the South China Sea.
The arrival of two anti-submarine ships Admiral Tributs and Admiral Vinogradov and a tanker ship is the sixth visit by the Russian navy under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte who has distanced himself from treaty ally U.S. and sought closer ties with Russia. The Philippines and China have both laid claim to large portions of the South China Sea, with China building militarized artificial islands across the important shipping lane.
West Palm Beach, Fla. -- A woman from China, accused of illegally entering President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, is due in court Monday. The Secret Service said Yujing Zhang reached the reception desk before she was stopped last month. She was allegedly carrying two Chinese passports, four cellphones, and a thumb drive full of malicious software.
The purpose of the hearing Monday is to determine if Zhang should be released on bond, reports CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez. Federal prosecutors believe she's a flight risk. Her arrest has raised concerns about foreign agents infiltrating Mar-a-Lago.
Mr. Trump defended the security measures at Mar-a-Lago, his so-called "winter White House."
"No, I'm not concerned at all. I have -- we have very good control," Mr. Trump said.
Three US troops and 1 contractor were killed by an improvised explosive device Monday near Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced. In addition, three U.S. service members were wounded in the blast.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near the NATO base in Bagram district, in Parwan province.
The injured were evacuated and were receiving care, the Pentagon said. The names of those killed were being withheld for 24 hours until the notification of next of kin has been completed, as per Defense Department policy.
The Kremlin doesn't have the luxury of choosing allies: It has to go with adventurers and risk-takers.
By the time Putin became interested in expanding Russia's reach in the developing world, even the Soviet-era allies he had left had become shaky. Assad was involved in this century's deadliest civil war, and Russia had to mount a full-scale military operation to keep him in power. That was a risky bet that hasn't delivered a clear pay-off yet: Syria is in ruins, and the opportunistic partnership with Iran is more of an inconvenience than a helpful alliance, given Iran's problems with the Western world, Israel and, most importantly for Putin, with Saudi Arabia.
Libyan General Khalifa Haftar announced an offensive on Tripoli against the UN-backed Government of National Accord on April 4, 2019 [Still image from video/Reuters]
Recent territorial gains and the upheaval in Algeria allowed Khalifa Haftar to advance on western Libya.
On April 4, Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar announced in a voice recording circulated online that he was launching a military campaign to take over the capital, Tripoli. His media office then released a video purporting to show tens of armoured vehicles bearing the emblems of Haftar's "Libyan National Army" (LNA) heading towards the Libyan capital. Tripoli would fall in 48 hours, his forces declared.
Mitiga airport's services suspended as death toll rises amid battles between forces loyal to Haftar and UN-backed gov't.
Forces under the command of Libya's renegade General Khalifa Haftar have launched an air raid against the only functioning airport in Tripoli as heavy fighting rages for control of the capital.
Al Jazeera's Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tripoli, said services at the Mitiga airport in the east of the city were temporarily suspended after the attack on Monday.
United States Secret Service director Randolph "Tex" Alles is being removed from his position, multiple administration officials tell CNN.
President Donald Trump instructed his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to fire Alles. Alles remains in his position as of now but has been asked to leave.
The USSS director was told two weeks ago there would be a transition in leadership and he was asked to stay on until there was a replacement, according to a source close to the director.
Secret Service officials have been caught by surprise with the news and are only finding out through CNN, according to the source.
Turkish president's AK Party has not formally applied for a new vote in the city, where it narrowly lost recent election.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for the municipal election to be re-run in Istanbul, citing alleged voter irregularities and saying the opposition's 13,000 to 14,000 vote lead in the city was not enough for them to declare victory outright.
Erdogan's comments on Monday came as it became clear that his ruling party's previous demand, lodged to the Supreme Election Board (YSK), to hold a recount on votes that were deemed invalid in Istanbul, didn't have a significant effect on the results.
But the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has not formally filed an application to hold the elections again in Istanbul, where it was narrowly defeated in 31 March polls.
About 300,000 votes were declared invalid in the city for a variety of reasons, such as ripped ballots or ballots that had drawings on them.
With European elections looming closer and closer, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini is launching his campaign for the elections on Monday with the hope of forging an alliance of nationalist groups that can grab seats from the more conventional parties.
Under the slogan "To the Europe of Common Sense!" Salvini is holding a meeting with other European populist parties in Milan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank if he wins another term in office, a last-minute pre-election promise likely to enrage Palestinians and the Arab world.
In an interview with Israeli television, Mr Netanyahu was asked why he had not extended sovereignty to large West Bank settlements, as Israel did without international recognition in east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, both captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Social media companies will face huge fines if they fail to live up to their "duty of care" to internet users.
The UK government is taking a hard line when it comes to online safety, moving to establish what it says is the world's first independent regulator to keep social media companies in check.
Companies that fail to live up to requirements will face huge fines, and senior directors who are proven to have been negligent will be held personally liable. They may also find access to their sites blocked.
The new measures, designed to make the internet a safer place, were announced jointly by the Home Office and Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The introduction of the regulator is the central recommendation of a highly anticipated government white paper, titled Online Harms, published early Monday in the UK.
President Donald Trump announced Monday the US will formally designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
"This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft," Trump said in a statement that described the IRGC as "the Iranian government's primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign."
Iran warned this weekend that if the US went ahead with the designation, Tehran would retaliate by designating the US military as a terrorist organization in return.
* Libya stands on the verge of a civil war. * Tripoli could be sacked by rebel forces loyal to renegade General Khalifa Hafta. * From an energy perspective, 300,000 to 400,000 million barrels of oil supply are at risk.
DUBAI — A resurgence in fighting around the Libyan capital of Tripoli this week has driven U.S. forces to pull out of the country and is providing a new upside risk to global oil prices, underscoring the OPEC producer's importance to markets and the fragility of its supply.
Rebel forces loyal to renegade General Khalifa Haftar, who effectively controls the country's breakaway east, launched a surprise offensive against the home of Libya's UN-recognized government last week in a move that risks plunging the country back into civil war.
"The Libyan conflict coming back onto the front of the mind of the marketplace is actually very significant right now," Dave Ernsberger, global head of energy at S&P Global Platts, told CNBC in Dubai on Monday.
The UN calls for forces in the war-torn country to "de-escalate and halt military activity".
Clashes in the southern part of Tripoli have left at least 25 people dead and 80 wounded, according to Libya's health ministry.
The ministry said the victims were fighters and civilians, including a whole family who died.
Some 2,800 people have been displaced by fighting for Libya's capital Tripoli, according to the country's UN humanitarian co-coordinator.
"The United Nations continues to call for a temporary humanitarian truce to allow for the provision of emergency services and the voluntary passage of civilians, including those wounded, from areas of conflict," it said in a statement.
The United States military pulled a contingent of its troops from Libya on Sunday amid a surge in violence in the capital city of Tripoli, America's top commander for Africa said.
"The security realities on the ground in Libya are growing increasingly complex and unpredictable," Marine Corps Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of US Africa Command, said Sunday in a statement. "Even with an adjustment of the force, we will continue to remain agile in support of existing US strategy."
The American forces, who provide military support for diplomatic missions, counterterrorism activities and improving regional security, have been relocated temporarily in response to "increased unrest."
The goal is to replace the Army's Black Hawks and some Marine helos, but the new design might ultimately replace a number of other helicopters too.
The U.S. Army has revealed new details about what it wants from its high-speed, long-range replacement for the UH-60 Black Hawk series of helicopters. The service's goal is to have the first examples of this future assault rotorcraft in service by 2030, with additional variants for U.S. Special Operations Command and the U.S. Marine Corps following soon thereafter.
The Army's Program Executive Office for Aviation issued a request for information regarding what the service formally calls the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) on Apr. 4, 2019. FLRAA is part of the over-arching Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program, through which the service hopes to replace all of its existing helicopters.
(JERUSALEM) — Israeli voters began casting ballots Tuesday in parliamentary elections that will determine whether longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in office after a decade in power.
Clouded by a series of looming corruption indictments, Netanyahu is seeking a fourth consecutive and a fifth overall term in office, which would make him Israel’s longest-ever serving leader, surpassing founding father David Ben-Gurion.
He faces a stiff challenge from retired military chief Benny Gantz, whose Blue and White party has inched ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud in polls. Netanyahu still appears to have the best chance of forming a coalition, though, with a smattering of small nationalist parties backing him. Gantz cast his ballot in his hometown of Rosh Haayin in central Israel alongside his wife, Revital, and called on all Israelis to get out and vote, saying they should “take responsibility” for their democracy.
“Go to vote. Choose whoever you believe in. Respect each other and let us all wake up for a new dawn, a new history,” he said.
The election has emerged as a referendum on Netanyahu and his 13 years overall in power, with the existential questions facing Israel rarely being discussed in the campaign. The 69-year-old prime minister has been the dominant force in Israeli politics for the past two decades and its face to the world.
But his various corruption scandals have created some voter fatigue, and in recent days he’s vowed to annex Jewish West Bank settlements if re-elected — a prospect that could doom the already slim hopes of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which Netanyahu has previously wavered on.
“It’s about time for a change,” said Barry Rifkin, a Jerusalem resident.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m., with exit polls expected at the end of the voting day, at 10 p.m. Some 6.4 million eligible voters will be able to cast their ballots at more than 10,000 stations. Some 40 parties are running, but no more than a dozen are expected to make it into parliament. Election day in Israel is a national holiday, with turnout expected to be high in good weather.
Official results will begin streaming in early Wednesday, but it may take far longer for a final verdict to come through, given the fragmented state of Israeli politics.
As many as a half-dozen parties are teetering along the threshold for entering the Knesset, or parliament. A failure by any of these parties to get the required 3.25 percent of total votes cast could have a dramatic impact on who ultimately forms the next coalition. The Israeli government needs a parliamentary majority to rule, and since no party has ever earned more than half of the 120 seats in the Knesset, a coalition is required.
Netanyahu and Gantz have ruled out sitting together in government, so the next prime minister will likely come down to how many supporters each candidate can recruit.
Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, could play an important role. Though largely a ceremonial post, the president is responsible for choosing the candidate with the best chance of building a stable coalition government as prime minister.
In the campaign’s final days, Netanyahu has veered to the right and embarked on a media blitz in which he portrays himself as the underdog and frantically warns that “the right-wing government is in danger.”
His nationalist allies, however, see the move as a repeat of his 2015 election tactic to draw away their voters as he did four years ago when on election day, he warned of Arabs turning out in “droves.” The scare tactics were seen as helping him seal a come-from-behind victory.
Arab turnout will be a major issue this time as well. Netanyahu’s campaign against Arab politicians, together with the new alliance with anti-Arab extremists and the passage of last year’s contentious nation-state law, which enshrined Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people alone, have deepened calls for a ballot boycott in Arab communities.
But some hope these blows will have the opposite effect, fueling enough frustration to drive up the Arab participation rate, which is typically lower than that of Israeli Jews. A big Arab turnout could push smaller right-wing parties into the margins and even threaten Netanyahu’s long rule.
The Palestinian issue has been largely sidelined in the election campaign that has been long on scandal and short on substance. But in a reminder, the military says it imposed a 24-hour closure on the West Bank and Gaza throughout election day, based on its security assessments.
Even if he is re-elected, Netanyahu could have a difficult time governing. Some of his allies have indicated they will no longer back him if formal charges are filed.
Israel’s attorney general has recommended indicting him on bribery and breach of trust charges in three separate cases. Rivals have also begun to question a deal in which Netanyahu reportedly earned $4 million on a German submarine sale to Egypt by owning shares in one of the German manufacturer’s suppliers.
Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and claims the accusations are part of a liberal media’s orchestrated witch hunt against him.
Netanyahu has generated much of his popularity from projecting a tough image in the face of Iran’s rising power and for keeping Israel safe and prosperous in a hostile region.
But in Gantz he has encountered the rare opponent who can match his security credentials. Along with two other former military chiefs on his ticket, Gantz has attacked Netanyahu for failing to halt rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The telegenic Gantz, who has been vague on key policy fronts, has presented himself as a clean, scandal-free alternative to Netanyahu and has vowed to heal the rifts the longtime leader has created in Israeli society.
Nepal is dispatching government-appointed climbers Wednesday to remeasure the height of Mount Everest, amid rumors that the peak shrunk after a massive 2015 earthquake, Agence France-Presse reports.
The four climbers, commissioned by the country’s Survey Department, will scale the world’s tallest mountain following two years of preparations, including collecting readings from the ground and training for extreme conditions.
Everest has an official height of 29,029 feet. The figure was recorded by an Indian survey in 1954 and remains the accepted figure, but a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked the country four years ago shifted the mountain southwest by more than an inch, and has created doubt that the peak still stands at that height.
“We are sending a team because there were questions regarding the height of Everest after the earthquake,” the expedition’s co-ordinator, Susheel Dangol, told AFP.
The department hopes the expedition, which will be the first time Nepal conducts its own survey of the mountain, puts the speculation to rest.
Nepal and China have long feuded over the mountain’s height, which China asserts is about 13 feet shorter than the 1954 estimation. In 1999, an American team gave the peak another 6.6 feet, leading the U.S. National Geographic Society to list the elevation at 29,035 feet.
Khim Lal Gautam, the expedition’s leader and chief surveyor, acknowledged the dangers of the coming trip. Climbers face risks of ice falls, storms and avalanches, and in 2015, authorities closed off a treacherous stretch after a deadly avalanche killed 16. Some 290 people have died on Everest in more than a century of summiting attempts, according to the Himalayan Database.
“It will not be easy to work in that terrain, but we are confident our mission will be successful,” he said.
A former top-ranking New Zealand naval official has gone on trial this week in Auckland for allegedly placing a hidden camera in the bathroom of the country’s embassy in Washington D.C.
Alfred Keating, 59, a commodore in the New Zealand navy, was working as a defense attache in the U.S. when a spy-cam was discovered in a unisex bathroom in July 2017, reports the Guardian. Before he resigned, Keating was one of his country’s most senior naval officials.
Keating is accused of making intimate recordings with the motion sensor camera that was found after it fell out of a radiator. A man initially found the camera on the floor, and not knowing what it was, placed it on top of the heating device before another man spotted it and handed it over to security, reports the New Zealand Herald. The camera, which reportedly was linked to Keating through DNA found on the memory card, was sent back to New Zealand for further investigation.
Henry Steele, the case’s prosecutor, said that 700 deleted files and 20 existing files were found on the camera, including a video of a hand in a blue latex glove activating the device, according to the Herald. Steele also said that CCTV footage captured a man entering the bathroom around the time the camera was placed there, and that Keating’s laptop showed searches for Brickhouse Security, the camera’s manufacturer, and for instructions on how to “set up” the gadget, the Herald reports.
Keating denies wrongdoing. “The evidence doesn’t tell you who did it and it certainly doesn’t tell you it was Mr. Keating,” said Ron Mansfield, Keating’s lawyer.
Given Keating’s position, he was under diplomatic immunity while stationed in the U.S., so he is being tried in his home country.
The trial, which is expected to last about two weeks, comes amid an upsurge of spy-cam crimes across the globe, including the recent discovery of the activities of hundreds of hotel guests being live-streamed in South Korea, and the arrest of a tourist in Sydney for allegedly secretly filming his hostel roommate in the shower.
Nine Hong Kong activists behind the pro-democracy demonstrations in 2014 were convicted Tuesday on public nuisance and incitement charges, a verdict that some fear portends a creeping erosion of freedom of expression in the semi-autonomous Chinese enclave.
Those found guilty include law professor Benny Tai, retired sociology professor Chan Kin-man and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming.
According to court documents, Tai, Chan and Chu conspired to encourage “unlawful obstruction of public places and roads.” But the three, known as the “Occupy trio” for co-founding the non-violent Occupy Central protest that evolved into a large-scale movement immobilizing the city’s financial district for nearly three months, had pleaded not guilty to public nuisance and other charges.
The other six activists were convicted of varying charges for their involvement in the 2014 campaign, which called for greater democracy and direct elections in the Chinese-controlled city.
Chan said that despite the verdict, his “soul is still.”
“I still believe in the power of love and peace,” Chan told local news outlet Hong Kong Free Press. “And I have no regrets for what I have done.”
Joshua Wong, the student protest leader who became the face of the movement and who was himself sentenced to six months in prison in 2017, told TIME that the verdict indicates China’s intolerance of the democratic challenge.
“It shows that no matter the age, whether the activists are young or more senior leaders like the ones convicted today, the Chinese government wants to target them all,” he says.
Outside the courthouse, the verdict was reportedly met by chanting crowds holding up yellow umbrellas, a symbol of the protests, which were also known as the “Umbrella Movement.”
For 79 days in late 2014, Hong Kong democracy activists camped out in front of government headquarters and blocked major thoroughfares, staging the most significant political uprising China has seen since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. Police eventually cleared the encampments and arrested hundreds, dampening a movement which failed to win any major democratic concessions.
In a statement emailed to TIME, Man-kei Tam, director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, called Tuesday’s verdict a “crushing blow” for freedom of expression and peaceful protest in the city.
The verdict is the latest event to underscore concerns over Beijing’s commitment to upholding the autonomy and freedoms enjoyed in Hong Kong, but not exercised on the mainland. The former British colony was returned to China in 1997 in a handover agreement that promised a “one country, two systems” model of governance.
Last November, a Financial Times editor was effectively barred from entering Hong Kong after immigration officials rejected his visa, a move many saw as retribution for his hosting of an event with independence activist Andy Chan. The month before, the Hong Kong government banned Chan’s separatist political party, claiming the move was “necessary” for national security.
(JAKARTA, Indonesia) — More families of victims of the Lion Air crash in Indonesia are suing Boeing Co. after its chief executive apologized and said a software update for the MAX 8 jet would prevent further disasters.
Family members and lawyers said Monday that CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s comment last week related to an automated flight system was an admission that helps their cases.
The anti-stall system is suspected as a cause of the Lion Air crash in October and an Ethiopian Airlines crash in March that also involved a MAX 8 jet. The two crashes killed a total of 346 people.
Preliminary reports into both crashes found that faulty sensor readings erroneously triggered the anti-stall system that pushed the plane’s nose down. Pilots of each plane struggled in vain to regain control.
Families of 11 Lion Air victims said at a news conference organized by Jakarta law firm Kailimang & Ponto that they are joining dozens of other Indonesian families in filing lawsuits against Boeing.
“Boeing’s CEO explicitly apologized to 346 passenger families,” said Merdian Agustin, whose husband died in the crash. “We hope this is good momentum to have compensation rights.”
Agustin, the mother of three children, said that she and dozens of other families have not received 1.2 billion rupiah ($85,000) compensation they are entitled to in Indonesia because they refused to sign a “release and discharge” document that extinguishes their right to sue Lion Air, Boeing or their subsidiaries.
“We refused to sign such a document containing statements that are treating our loved ones like lost baggage,” Agustin said. “It’s ridiculous and hurts us.”
Boeing acknowledged that the sensor malfunctioned and Muilenburg said last week that a new software update would prevent future incidents. “It’s our responsibility to eliminate this risk,” Muilenburg said in a video statement. “We own it, and we know how to do it.”
Lawyer Michael Indrajana said that since the crash, families in Indonesia have faced a complicated and painful process against Boeing and Lion Air in their battle to get compensation.
He said the Boeing CEO’s statement shows the airline is now acknowledging responsibility.
“No amount of money can bring their loved ones back,” he said. “We want to fight for the orphans, so they have the opportunity to get a better future.”
Boeing said last week that it will cut production of its troubled 737 Max airliner this month, underscoring the growing financial risk it faces the longer that its best-selling plane remains grounded after the two crashes.
The company said that starting in mid-April it will cut production of the plane to 42 from 52 per month so it can focus its attention on fixing the flight-control software that has been implicated in the crashes.
The move was not a complete surprise. Boeing had already suspended deliveries of the Max last month after regulators around the world grounded the jet.
Boeing also announced it is creating a special board committee to review airplane design and development.
The announcement to cut production comes after Boeing acknowledged that a second software issue has emerged that needs fixing on the Max — a discovery that explained why the aircraft maker had pushed back its ambitious schedule for getting the planes back in the air.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department is publicly designating 16 people for their roles in the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October.
Such designation makes those individuals and immediate family members ineligible for entry into the United States.
Khashoggi wrote critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in columns for The Washington Post before he was killed. After denying any knowledge of Khashoggi’s death for weeks, Saudi authorities eventually settled on the explanation that he was killed in an operation masterminded by former advisers to Prince Mohammed. The kingdom denies the crown prince had any involvement.
The list released Monday includes Saud al-Qahtani, a former aide to the crown prince, and Maher Mutreb, who was part of the crown prince’s entourage on trips abroad.
HAVANA (AP) — The Trump administration is moving to end a deal allowing Cuban baseball players to sign contracts directly with Major League Baseball organizations. The change will once again require Cuban players to cut ties with their national program before signing with MLB.
The Treasury Department told MLB attorneys in a letter Friday that it was reversing an Obama administration decision allowing the major leagues to pay the Cuban Baseball Federation a release fee equal to 25% of each Cuban player’s signing bonus. The decision made public Monday afternoon appears to make the MLB-Cuba deal unworkable by eliminating the payment mechanism, similar to one MLB has with leagues in China, Korea and Japan.
“The U.S. does not support actions that would institutionalize a system by which a Cuban government entity garnishes the wages of hard-working athletes who simply seek to live and compete in a free society,” National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said. “The administration looks forward to working with MLB to identify ways for Cuban players to have the individual freedom to benefit from their talents, and not as property of the Cuban state.”
The MLB and Cuba engaged in intense negotiations on a player-transfer deal through the Obama administration’s two-year effort to normalize relations with Cuba but the deal was only finalized after Donald Trump took office pledging to roll back Obama’s policy. Opponents of normalization inside and outside the administration argued for its cancellation as soon as it was announced, and appear to have now succeeded.
U.S. law prohibits virtually all payments to the Cuban government under the 60-year embargo on the island but MLB argued the Cuban Baseball Federation, which oversees all aspects of the sport on the island, was not formally a part of the Cuban state.
Opponents called that argument ridiculous given the tight control the highly regimented government maintains over virtually every aspect of life in Cuba.
The letter from the Office of Foreign Assets Control obtained by The Associated Press agrees, saying that “in light of facts recently brought to our attention, and after consultation with the U.S. Department of State, OFAC has determined that MLB’s payments to the Cuban Baseball Federation are not authorized.”
“We stand by the goal of the agreement, which is to end the human trafficking of baseball players from Cuba,” an MLB statement said.
Without a formal path from Cuba to the major leagues, hundreds of top players have left the island for good, many making harrowing crossings on rafts and rickety boats in the years before Cuba abandoned a hated exit permit requirement for most of its citizens.
While such dangerous escapes were mostly eliminated with greater travel freedoms, players still needed to cut ties with Cuban baseball and often their families and hometowns, going years without returning after signing with the major leagues.
“The deal with Major League Baseball is an attempt to stop human trafficking, encourage cooperation and elevate the level of baseball,” the Cuban Baseball Federation said on Twitter. “The politically motivated attacks on the deal hurt players, their families, and fans.”
Last week the Cuban federation released its first group of players able to sign contracts directly with Major League Baseball organizations, and some expected to be playing in the United States this year.
The 34 players were 17 to 25, classified as international amateurs under MLB rules and eligible to sign minor league contracts. No likely stars were apparent on the list, but more notable players included 22-year-old Raidel Martinez Perez and 23-year-old Liván Moinelo Pita, who have played professionally in Japan; 17-year-old infielder Loidel Chapellí Zulueta; and 18-year-old pitcher Norge Carlos Vera Aldana.
The Cuban federation also agreed to release all players 25 and older with at least six years of professional experience to be classified as international professionals under MLB’s labor contract with the players’ association and not subject to international amateur signing bonus pools.
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Associated Press Baseball Writer Ronald Blum in New York contributed to this report.
Before he became a bestselling novelist, before he embarrassed Egypt’s former prime minister on live television, before he heard military prosecutors were suing him, Dr. Alaa al Aswany was in the business of fixing teeth. When he started out, Aswany’s dental practice had afforded him the ability to write without being financially beholden to the state. As his star rose he couldn’t bring himself to drop a profession that kept him engaged with everyday Egyptians.
“When you become successful, there is a risk you can get disconnected from real life,” Aswany, now 61, told TIME recently by phone from Cornell University in New York, where he was scheduled to deliver a series of lectures. “I didn’t do that. I was always with the people.”
After he wrote the The Yacoubian Building—the Arab world’s best-selling novel for five years running after its publication in 2002—Aswany pared back appointments to one or two per week. Although they became less frequent as he spent more time working overseas, the author’s Cairo clinic remains open. Aswany performed his most recent surgery there last July, he says, a porcelain bridge.
But returning to Cairo has become risky. One of Egypt’s most renowned authors, Aswany hasn’t appeared on television or written “a line” in the country since strongman PresidentAbdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power in 2014, he says. He published his 2018 novel The Republic, As If—an elegy for Egypt’s 2011 revolution—in Lebanon because no local publishing house dared put it out.
That did not stop Egyptian lawmakers slamming the writer for its contents last year. And this March, Aswany learned through an article in Egyptian newspaper Egypt Today that he was being sued at the military General Prosecution Office in a lawsuit that called for his trial over accusations he had insulted ‘the president, the Armed Forces, and judicial institutions.’ The lawsuit referenced a series of columns Aswany had written for Germany’s state broadcaster Deutsche Welle, including one that criticized the appointment of military generals to public office. “This is disturbing,” he says of the charge, because Egypt’s military courts have “full authority to do anything.”
Censorship and the muzzling of critical press was a facet of Egyptian life under Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year authoritarian rule as well as under his successor Mohamed Morsi, but crackdowns on free expression have worsened under Sisi, media watchdogs say. Reporters Without Borders ranks Egypt 161st out of 180 countries on its press freedom index and says at least 31 journalists and media assistants are in jail there unjustly. Aswany’s case is the latest example of the Sisi regime “using all tools at its disposal to silence independent media and civil society,” Rebecca Vincent, UK Bureau Director at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says.
Those tools include a new media regulation law that imposes crippling financial burdens on independent websites and classifies blogs and social media accounts with more than 5,000 followers as media outlets, liable to be shut down by authorities. Regulators have blocked more than 500 websites since the summer of 2017 and under cybercrime laws passed last year, even visiting a banned website is punishable by a year in prison.
Literary figures and artists have also been targeted by Sisi’s regime. Only two weeks before Aswany learned of the charges against him, a military court upheld a five year-prison sentence handed down to a publisher and bookseller for “divulging military secrets” after he distributed a translation of a banned book written by an Israeli writer. Last summer a military court sentenced poet Galal El-Behairy to three years’ imprisonment for “insulting the military” and “spreading false news” in a collection of poetry called The Finest Women on Earth, according to international writers’ association PEN International. And this March, Amr Waked, an award winning Egyptian actor living in Barcelona said a military court had sentenced him to eight years in prison for “disseminating false news and insulting state institutions.” These cases are part of a broader pattern of trying civilians in military courts. Human Rights Watch says that since 2014, some 15,000 civilians have been referred to Egypt’s military courts, which along with the country’s criminal courts have issued 2,500 initial death sentences.
For Aswany, there is nothing surprising about the regime cracking down on authors and actors. “Fiction is always more dangerous than non-fiction in criticizing dictatorships,” he says, because it allows readers to ”feel the suffering of the people.” He credits dissident writers and artists in the country for helping inspire the 2011 revolution that led to the downfall of Mubarak. But the people who hold the levers of power have adopted a “never again” policy, he says, resolving to “never again give any room for opposition or different ideas.”
Aswany was among the hundreds of thousands of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square who forced the resignation of Mubarak in 2011. He describes the days leading up to the dictator’s exit as “the most beautiful” of his life. Before, he had understood the Egyptian people “theoretically”, he says, but living like a huge family facing regime snipers together bought a deeper understanding. “Millions of people were determined either to die or to live free, and this is something I will always be very proud that I participated in.”
Aswany did not only participate in demonstrations. A few weeks after Mubarak fell, he interviewed one of the autocrat’s final cabinet appointments, the new Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik. It was the first time an Egyptian leader had answered unscripted questions broadcast live since 1977, the New Yorkerreports, and appeared to be a last, desperate attempt to present an urbane, conciliatory face of the regime to the Egyptian public. Aswany didn’t let that happen, tearing into the prime minister over his apparent tolerance for protesters being shot dead. Shafik became rattled and belligerent and the talk show descended into a shouting match. He resigned the next morning.
It’s unlikely this kind of confrontation would be televised in today’s environment, with Sisi in power. And Aswany can’t count upon the the leader of the U.S., where he has now exiled himself, to pressure the regime into changing its behavior. President Donald Trump has shown himself to be a friend to strongmen around the globe. He has been a steadfast ally of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman even after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He once praised Sisi as a “fantastic guy.” Says Aswany, “Every time the President of the United States supports an Arab dictator, more people are victimized.”
To avoid being one of them, Aswany says he’ll follow the advice of his lawyer before returning to Egypt. Between lecturing at U.S. grad schools and literary festival engagements he stays in Brooklyn, where he writes five days a week from 7am until 1pm. He doesn’t practice dentistry in the U.S. but befriends people in bars, learning about their lives in the same way he did at his Cairo clinic. Despite the regime’s increasing repression, he says he is optimistic about the struggle for freedom and democracy in Egypt. “I read history,” he says, “I know that it takes time.”
(WASHINGTON) — The United States on Monday designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization, an unprecedented declaration against a foreign government that may prompt retaliation and make it harder for American diplomats and military officers to work with allies in the region.
It is the first time that the U.S. has designated an entity of another government as a terrorist organization, placing a group with vast economic resources that answers only to Iran’s supreme leader in the same category as al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
“This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft,” President Donald Trump said in announcing the measure.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the designation is intended to increase pressure on Iran, isolating it further and diverting some of the financial resources it uses to fund terrorism and militant activity in the Middle East and beyond. But, in addition to the potential for Iranian retaliation, it complicates a delicate balance for U.S. personnel in at least two key countries.
The administration went ahead with the designation despite expressions of “serious” concern about the possibility of retaliation, as well as the effectiveness against an organization already subject to sanctions, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision.
Pompeo said the move is part of an effort to put “maximum pressure” on Iran to end its support for terrorist plots and militant activity that destabilizes the Middle East. Speaking to reporters, he rattled off a list of attacks dating to the 1980s for which the U.S. holds Iran and the IRGC responsible, beginning with the attacks on the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983.
No waivers or exceptions to the sanctions were announced, meaning U.S. troops and diplomats could be barred from speaking with Iraqi or Lebanese authorities who have dealings with Guard officials or surrogates. Such contact occurs now between U.S. officials in Iraq who deal with Iranian-affiliated Shiite militias and in Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement is in parliament and the government.
The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies had raised concerns about the impact of the designation if the move did not allow contact with other foreign officials who may have met with or communicated with Guard personnel. Those concerns have in part dissuaded previous administrations from taking the step, which has been considered for more than a decade.
The Justice Department said Monday it would prosecute violations but officials declined to say how broadly they would interpret the provision barring “material support” to the IRGC. A strict interpretation would leave hundreds of European companies and executives at risk for U.S. travel bans or criminal penalties in addition to limiting American officials’ ability to deal with foreign counterparts who have links to the guard.
The designation “raises the question of whether a non-U.S. company or individual could be prosecuted for engaging in commercial transactions with an Iranian company controlled by the IRGC,” said Anthony Rapa, an international trade and national security attorney with Kirkland and Ellis.
Critics of the hardline policy also see it as a prelude to conflict.
“This move closes yet another potential door for peacefully resolving tensions with Iran,” said Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council. “Once all doors are closed, and diplomacy is rendered impossible, war will essentially become inevitable.”
National Security Action, a group made up of mainly former Obama administration officials, said it would put U.S. troops at risk while jeopardizing the 2015 nuclear accord with which Iran is still complying.
“We need to call out today’s move for what it is: another dangerous and self-defeating tactic that endangers our troops and serves nothing but the Trump administration’s goal of destroying the Iran deal,” it said.
The designation could also open hundreds of foreign companies and business executives to U.S. travel bans and possible prosecution for sanctions violations.
The IRGC is a paramilitary organization formed in the wake of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution to defend the government. The force answers only to Iran’s supreme leader, operates independently of the regular military and has vast economic interests across the country. The U.S. estimates it may control or have a significant influence over up to 50% of the Iranian economy, including non-military sectors like banking and shipping.
Iran has long been designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the U.S. and the State Department currently designates more than 60 organizations as “foreign terrorist organizations.” But none of them is a state-run military.
Iran immediately responded to the designation with its Supreme National Security Council designating the U.S. Central Command, also known as CENTCOM, and all its forces as terrorist, and labeling the U.S. a “supporter of terrorism.”
The Council denounced the U.S. decision as “illegal and dangerous” and said the U.S. government would be responsible for all “dangerous repercussions” of its decision. It defended the IRGC, which has fought Islamic State fighters, as being a force against terrorism.
American military commanders were planning to warn U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region of the possibility of retaliation. Aside from Iraq, where some 5,200 American troops are stationed, and Syria, where some U.S. 2,000 troops remain, the U.S. 5th Fleet, which operates in the Persian Gulf from its base in Bahrain, and the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, are potentially at risk.
The U.S. special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, and the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Nathan Sales, said the decision was reached after consultation with agencies throughout the government but would not say in a news conference if the military or intelligence concerns had been addressed.
“Doing this will not impede our diplomacy,” Hook said, without elaborating. He noted that the U.S. has at various times had contact or even formal negotiations with members of groups that are subject to sanctions.
Reaction from those who favor tougher engagement with Iran was quick and welcoming.
“Thank you, my dear friend, US President Donald Trump,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a tweet, a day before what could be a close election. “Thank you for answering another of my important requests that serves the interests of our countries and of countries in the region.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the action an “overdue” but essential step that should be followed by additional sanctions.
Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the designation “ends the facade that the IRGC is part of a normal military.”
And, the Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, called it “an imperative for Middle East security, peace, and stability, and an urgent and necessary step to end war and terrorism throughout the region and the world.”
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Susannah George in Washington; Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.
Two years before he became mayor of London in 2016, Sadiq Khan ran the capital’s famous marathon. He’d been healthy his whole life, but while training for the race, he found he had trouble breathing. He went to the doctor, who diagnosed him with adult onset asthma. It was bad news in a city like London, he says, where air pollution has been known to trigger or worsen the disease, sending four people to hospital everyday. Though you might not think of toxic air while walking down London’s tree-lined streets on a clear spring day, the capital has breached the legal annual air pollution limit every year since 2010 — normally within the first few days of January. “Looking around, everything looks hunky dory,” Khan tells TIME in early April. “But the city I love is making people sick.”
Since his election three years ago, Khan has made London a key battleground in the global fight against air pollution. The politician, a member of the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on electric buses, creating car charging points and bike lanes, and installing thousands of air pollution sensors across the city. Khan’s flagship policy, the world’s first “ultra-low emission zone” or “ULEZ” came into force on Monday. London drivers already have to pay $15 a day to enter the city center, under a congestion charge introduced in 2003 to relieve traffic. The ULEZ adds a further $16 dollars a day for older and dirtier cars. The combined $31 daily charge has upset some; taxi drivers have protested and some trade unions have labeled it “a tax on the poor” who can’t afford to buy cleaner vehicles. But Khan says the problem is too urgent to ignore. He sees himself as the heir to the 20th Century British politicians who took bold steps to pass the U.K.’s 1956 Clean Air Act after London suffered frequent deadly smog clouds dubbed “Pea Soupers.” “They were told they couldn’t do drastic things like move factories out of town,” Khan says. “But they were brave. And we’ve been reaping the benefits for decades.”
Dan Kitwood – Getty Images A view of the London skyline from Primrose Hill on January 24, 2017 in London, England.
Air quality is a perfect example, Khan argues, of how cities can use their autonomy to make big changes faster than national governments. That’s particularly true at a time when the U.K. parliament has been preoccupied with negotiating Britain’s upcoming departure from the E.U., known as Brexit. “The rest of the country has been paralyzed, but we can be more nimble,” he says. He regularly trades solutions to urban problemswith other city mayors, he says, including Anne Hidalgo in Paris, Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles, and Bill De Blasio in New York; De Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are introducing the U.S.’ first congestion zone in Manhattan. “I’m a big believer in [stealing] other people’s ideas,” Khan says.
London’s current air pollution problem took root a few decades after The Clean Air Act. In the 1990s, European governments fell in love with diesel, encouraging drivers to buy diesel cars with tax breaks and buying huge fleets of diesel buses. “It was well intentioned, but pretty stupid,” says Simon Birkett, founder of campaign group Clean Air London. “They thought if more people used diesel engines, which burn fuel more efficiently, we’d produce less carbon dioxide.” But authorities didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be to get rid of the nitrogen oxides that diesel gives off. Meanwhile, weak regulations allowed automakers to produce cars that emit more pollutants than expected. The popularity of diesel cars — which still make up 40% of cars on U.K. roads compared to just 4% in the U.S. according to figures from 2014 — is the main reason Europe’s air quality is far lower than that of the U.S.
In London, the legacy of diesel is exacerbated, Birkett says, by the fact that, in contrast to the planned grid systems of American cities, many streets and pathways were established in medieval times and have snaked and twisted over hundreds of years into a “dreadfully, narrow, chaotic road lay-out.” That increases bottle-necks and means vehicles are often left at a standstill, pumping the exhaust into pedestrians’ lungs. The use of gas cookers and illegal wood stoves by the public also make the problem worse.
Khan says the cumulative effect has caused “a public health emergency” – but it’s one that’s hard to see. “If people that died from air pollution were covered in green spots, it would be very easy for everyone to understand,” says Gary Fuller, a scientist at King’s College London’s Air Quality Network, which monitors pollution around the city, and the author of a book on the threat of air pollution titled The Invisible Killer. “But when people’s lives are shortened, by air pollution, they die of the things that people die of anyway: respiratory diseases, heart disease, strokes.”
One of the most visible deaths linked to air pollution was that of nine year-old Ella Kissi-Debra in 2013. Ella had been active and healthy, her mother, Rosamund says. She played soccer and talked constantly about wanting to be a pilot. But she developed severe asthma just before her seventh birthday and died two years later. The family had lived meters from the notoriously polluted South Circular road in Southeast London and, after Ella’s death, Rosamund began to suspect pollution could have contributed to her health issues. “My daughter looked as if she’d been smoking. She was only nine,” she says.
Professor Stephen Holgate, an expert in the field, looked into the case and found a “striking association” between records of Ella’s emergency hospital admissions and local spikes in nitrogen dioxide and harmful PM10 particulates. In January, the U.K.’s attorney general said Rosamund could apply for a new inquest to potentially put air pollution on Ella’s death certificate – an unprecedented move in Britain. Rosamund says the move might force politicians to take pollution seriously — and provide some closure. “I wasn’t able to tell her why she was suffering so much. It’s only right that she has it on her death certificate why she died. She deserves that,” she says. “Then it will be, what are we going to do for everyone else so this never happens again?”
Most say Khan is doing better than previous mayors. His predecessor, Boris Johnson, who is now vying for leadership of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Theresa May’s job, was “notoriously bad,” Birkett, the campaigner, says. A King’s College London study published April 1 found that, if the rate of progress during his tenure continued, it would take London 193 years to reach legal levels of nitrogen dioxide. With changes made since 2016, the city could get there in just six. For the first time in 10 years, London has made it to April without breaching the legal limit.
SOPA Images/ LightRocket/ Getty ImagesMinicab drivers block London’s Parliament Square in protest over changes to the congestion charge on February 25, 2019
But taking strong action on the environment can have a political cost, as French President Emmanuel Macron learned last November: his plan to cut carbon emissions by hiking fuel taxes enraged working-class people in rural areas who rely on their cars. The ongoing “Yellow Vest” protest movement has become a major challenge for Macron’s attempts to push through reform.
Khan faces his own resistance. The ULEZ charges have sparked outrage in the rightwing press, and among suburban drivers who are frustrated by the government’s change of heart on diesel fuels. Plans to extend the ULEZ in 2021 to an area roughly five miles out from the center of town, affecting 3.6 million people’s homes, could pose a problem for Khan’s re-election bid next year. Almost 80,000 people have signed a petition against the extension, and angry drivers hounded Khan on a trip to suburban Chingford. His conservative opponent for mayor, Shaun Bailey, has pledged to stop the extension and labeled Khan’s anti-pollution measures “vanity projects.”
The ULEZ’s strongest opposition has come from London’s swelling army of mini-cab and ride-hailing companies. From April 8, drivers for those companies will no longer be exempt from the congestion charge — which could push earnings down by 13% over an 8 hour shift. They say the change is discriminatory, because drivers of the iconic black cabs, who are mostly white, remain exempt from both the congestion charge and the ULEZ — meanwhile 95% of London’s private hire drivers come from ethnic minorities. The mayor’s office says black cabs are exempt because they are regulated by the London Transport authority and are working to a separate emissions-reduction plan set out in 2018 . But private-hire drivers have staged a series of disruptive protests in central London, carrying signs reading “Sadiq is driving us into poverty.” On April 4, a judge ruled a group of Uber drivers can sue Khan for racial discrimination.
Khan is undeterred. “I’m not going to apologize for taking bold action to fix London’s air,” he says. He points out that air pollution is also a “social justice issue,” because government research suggests poorer and ethnic minority Londoners are more likely to live close to highly polluted main roads, and less likely to own cars. The mayor has announced a $30 million fund to help small businesses scrap their older vehicles and buy cleaner alternatives.
With the proportion of people living in cities worldwide projected to reach 68% by 2050 – and London’s own population expected to grow by 37% – Khan says his aggressive approach to pollution urgently needs to become the norm. “We need to make it so that living in cities isn’t bad for you,” he says. The scale of the global air pollution crisis – with an estimated 95% of people exposed to unsafe levels – makes it hard to see that goal being accomplished soon. But if Khan’s measures stick, Londoners, at least, will breathe a little easier.
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