Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters have thrown morning rush hour train travel into chaos, kicking off another day of potential turmoilhttps://t.co/yvCM4ypM1M
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador brushed off problems including a stagnant economy and spiralling violence to insist in his first state of the nation address that he is delivering the "transformation" he promised https://t.co/ahmUfxLDAx
Over the weekend, the Israeli army said it acted in the Damascus area to foil a drone strike on northern Israel by an Iranian force
Anti-drone technology recently developed in Israel can seize control of enemy drones and land them anywhere. Taking control of the drones without causing them damage makes it possible to reuse them and extract any data that the drone collected prior to its interception.
"The system that we developed can detect hostile drones at a range of up to three and a half kilometers [about 2 miles] and take control of about 200 drones at the same time," Asaf Lebovitz, the product manager of Skylock, one of the Israeli companies that have developed the technology, told Haaretz.
Israel said it carried out an attack in Syria on Saturday to thwart a drone attack on northern Israel by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that two members of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia group and one Iranian were killed in the attack. The Israeli army said the Quds Force had been planning to launch a number of drones.
* The U-2 spy plane has been operating all over the world for more than 60 years. * The Dragon Lady's mission has remained the same over that time, but how it does it has changed considerably, and the Air Force is always looking for ways to gather more information and distribute it faster.
The 64th anniversary of the U-2 spy plane's historic, and accidental, first flight came in early August.
While much about the Dragon Lady has changed in the past six decades — most of the 30 or so in use now were built in the 1980s, and they no longer do overflights of hostile territory, like the 1960 flight on which Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union — the U-2 is still at the front of the military's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission, lurking off coastlines and above battlefields.
The U-2 is probably most famous for what pilots call "the optical bar camera," Maj. Travis "Lefty" Patterson, a U-2 pilot, said at an Air Force event in New York City in May.
This video grab from RU-RTR Russian television on Thursday, March 1, 2018, purports to show the launch of what President Vladimir Putin said is Russia's new nuclear-powered intercontinental cruise missile. President Vladimir Putin declared Thursday that Russia has developed a range of new nuclear weapons, claiming they can't be intercepted by enemy. (RU-RTR Russian Television via YouTube)
* A U.S. intelligence report says the mysterious explosion off Russia's northern coast occurred during a recovery mission to salvage the Kremlin's nuclear-powered missile from the ocean floor. * The mysterious explosion sparked fears that Russia had tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile, also known as Skyfall. * CNBC learned last year of similar plans Moscow made to try to recover a nuclear-powered missile lost at sea.
WASHINGTON — A U.S. intelligence assessment found that the mysterious explosion off of Russia's northern coast occurred during a recovery mission to salvage a nuclear-powered missile from the ocean floor, according to people with direct knowledge of the report.
The mysterious explosion on Aug. 8 killed five scientists and sparked fears that Russia had tested its new nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile, also known as Skyfall.
"This was not a new launch of the weapon, instead it was a recovery mission to salvage a lost missile from a previous test," said a person with direct knowledge of the U.S. intelligence assessment. "There was an explosion on one of the vessels involved in the recovery and that caused a reaction in the missile's nuclear core which lead to the radiation leak," said another person, who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.
Dubbed the 'Kian', unmanned drone can fly over 1,000km and climb to an altitude of 5,000 metres, officials say.
Iran has unveiled the "Kian", a new high-precision drone that can locate and attack targets far from the country's borders, according to officials.
Brigadier General Alireza Sabahifard displayed the unmanned aerial vehicle at a ceremony in the capital, Tehran, saying it can fly more than 1,000km and climb to an altitude of 5,000 metres, according to state media.
The jet-propelled drone comes in two models capable of "surveillance and reconnaissance missions and continuous flight for precision missions," state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying on Sunday.
President Mauricio Macri's government has imposed foreign-exchange controls on Argentine exporters. A week of financial uncertainty has led to a sharp drop in the value of the peso.
In an effort to prop up the peso, authorities ordered exporters and citizens to seek permission from the Central Bank of Argentina before purchasing foreign currency or making transfers abroad, according to a decree published in the Official Bulletin on Sunday.
In the wording of Sunday's decree, the temporary measures would "regulate more intensely the currency exchange regime and strengthen the normal functioning of the economy."
Individuals seeking to buy dollars now face a monthly limit of $10,000 (€9,100). All these new measures will remain in place until December 31.
Chinese exports worth $125bn will face new taxes from 1 September, while China places levy on oil as agreement becomes more distant
China and the United States have begun imposing additional tariffs on each other's goods in the latest escalation of their bruising trade war that has sent shockwaves through the global economy.
A new round of tariffs took effect from 0401 GMT on Sunday, with Beijing's levy of 5% on US crude oil marking the first time the fuel has been targeted since the world's two largest economies started their trade war more than a year ago.
The Trump administration will begin collecting 15% tariffs on more than $125bn in Chinese imports, including smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones and many types of footwear.
* Hundreds of protesters tried to stop traffic on the main road to the airport today and barricaded bus station * Some chanted 'Fight for freedom! Stand with Hong Kong!' as riot police watched from inside the terminals * Last night demonstrators hurled petrol bombs and police used tear gas and a water cannon laced with dye * Officers made arrests inside metro stations yesterday and the hospital reported that 31 people were admitted
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside Hong Kong's international airport today to disrupt travel and try to bring global attention to their fight for democracy following another night of violent protests.
Operators of the Airport Express train said it had suspended services this afternoon, while black-clad protesters - hiding from CCTV cameras under umbrellas - built barricades at the airport bus station.
Planes were taking off and landing with delays, but some passengers were forced to walk the last bit of their journey to the airport by foot, dragging their luggage behind them.
The MTR subway station in Tung Chung was closed and demonstrators smashed CCTV cameras and lamps with metal poles and dismantled station turnstiles.
* As Hurricane Dorian comes perilously close to mainland US, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster announced mandatory evacuation orders for the state's coastline, which will go into effect on Monday * The order covers some 830,000 residents, many of whom will be evacuating their homes for the fourth time in four years * Hurricane Dorian intensified into a Category 5 storm early Sunday morning with record-setting gusts exceeding 200mph * Dorian made landfall in the Bahamas on Elbow Cay in the Abacos Islands at 12.40pm ET then again at 2pm ET, bringing with it 'catastrophic' conditions * Video posted to social media by residents of Abaco in the Bahamas shows homes missing parts of their roofs, utility lines down and cars overturned * 'You cannot tell the difference as to the beginning of the street versus where the ocean begins,' Bahamanian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said on Sunday * As of 8pm ET, Dorian was centered about 155 miles east of West Palm Beach, Florida
South Carolina on Sunday ordered nearly a million people living along its coastline to evacuate in anticipation of the arrival of Dorian, a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane that is currently battering the northern Bahamas.
The evacuation orders were announced on Sunday evening by Governor Henry McMaster, who is taking no chances despite forecasts saying that the storm will move parallel to the coast.
McMaster's order goes into effect at noon Monday, when state troopers will begin reversing lanes so that people can all head inland on major coastal highways.
Authorities say the order covers approximately 830,000 people, many of whom will be evacuating for the fourth time in four years.
More than 100 people have died in Yemen after the Saudi-led coalition launched a series of air strikes on a detention centre, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ICRC said that at least 40 survivors were being treated after the attack on Sunday in the city of Dhamar.
Local residents reported hearing six air strikes during the night.
The Saudi-led coalition, which backs Yemen's government, said its attack destroyed a drone and missile site.
The Iran-aligned Houthi rebel movement, which is fighting in opposition to the government and Saudi-led coalition, said the strikes had hit a facility it was using as a prison. The ICRC said it had visited detainees at the location before.
Franz Rauchenstein, the head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, said the organisation was collecting bodies from the site and described the chances of finding more survivors as "very low".
Tensions between Israel and Iran threaten to drag Lebanon into renewed conflict
Hezbollah has launched an attack on Israeli military positions and drawn heavy return fire in the first cross-border clash for years between the longstanding foes.
Israel's military said "two or three anti-tank missiles" had been fired from southern Lebanon toward an army base and a military ambulance but had caused no deaths or injuries..
Russian officials said the US launched an attack during a cease-fire "in violation of all agreements." The US justified the strike, saying it targeted al-Qaida leaders "responsible for attacks threatening US citizens."
The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday accused the US of undermining a cease-fire in the Syrian province of Idlib after it launched airstrikes against al-Qaida leaders overnight.
US Central Command on Saturday said it had conducted a strike against al-Qaida in Idlib and that it targeted "leaders responsible for attacks threatening US citizens, our partners and innocent civilians."
The strike took place hours after a Russia-brokered cease-fire between rebels groups and government forces went into effect. Idlib is the last remaining major territory held by rebels.
Camp for Iraqis and Syrians fleeing caliphate flooded by families of Isis fighters, brewing deeper problems
The vast scale of al-Hawl can be seen from miles away, on the road that leads to the camp from the west. The white tents housing the displaced women and children of Islamic State stretch out over the dusty landscape far beyond the adjacent town's outskirts, the furthest away encroaching upon the foot of a hill.
The women of al-Hawl now call it Jabal Baghuz, or Baghuz Mountain, named for the oasis town on the Euphrates River where their husbands were finally defeated in March. Deep inside the section reserved for foreigners and beyond the control of the camp's overwhelmed guards, Jabal Baghuz is now the only place where the militant group's so-called caliphate lives on. It is from here that the seeds of the Isis resurgence are being sown.
"It's a timebomb waiting to go off. There is no easy solution," said General Mazloum Kobani of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the western-backed, mainly Kurdish group now responsible for administering much of Islamic State's former territory. "Even if the foreigners are sent home, the majority are Syrian and Iraqi detainees and if they are not deradicalised that will be a problem for many years to come."
WNU Editor: These people are not going to get any help. The Islamic State brought harm to millions and laid waste to a good part of Syria and Iraq. There is, to put it bluntly, no sympathy for them. And while there are fears that the Islamic State may rise again, I also get the feeling that many in the region are hoping that they would try something like that, so that they would then have the excuse to kill what remains of this group.
YouTube creator William Osman, center, poses for a photo aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Osman competed in an egg-drop contest with sailors aboard the ship. (U.S. Navy)
William Osman appears thrilled that he's about to perform an egg-drop experiment.
The challenge is the same one that generations of students have done before: Engineer a way to stop an egg that's dropped from a high elevation from obliterating on impact.
But Osman is no student. And the location of this egg drop is anything but typical.
Osman is an engineer and professional YouTube influencer who was invited aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt to compete in an egg-drop competition against a pair of sailors while cameras — lots of cameras — captured every moment on the aircraft carrier.
* Researchers say system should allow them to track any sound-emitting source – from nuclear subs to whales – using a simple listening device mounted on a buoy, underwater drone or ship * Breakthrough builds on previous work by team from Beijing and San Diego
Scientists from China and the United States have developed a new artificial intelligence -based system that they say will make it easier to detect submarines in uncharted waters.
The technology builds on earlier work by the team, led by Dr Niu Haiqiang from the Institute of Acoustics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, which saw them develop a deep-learning algorithm that could improve the speed and precision of detection.
The algorithm, however, needs a large amount of data to work, so its use is limited to waters that have already been fully charted. In contrast, the upgrade works in all waters, charted or otherwise.
While US allies stock their arsenals with the new stealth fighter, China quietly prepares a method to destroy it
On an imagined battlefield, an F-35 takes off from its base, headed for its target … unaware it is being tracked, by a squad of advanced drones with stealth capabilities.
Deftly launched from a bomber, the drone's purpose is to jam the intruder and destroy it. Small, undetectable, deadly.
In other words, it's high-tech noon in the sky, and one of them is going to die.
According to military experts, the LJ-I stealth target drone China recently showcased at the 2019 Russian International Aviation and Space Salon (MAKS) in Zhukovsky, will provide the Chinese military with experience encountering stealth fighter jets like the F-35, and possibly more in the future.
WNU Editor: There is a lot of speculation in the above article on what China is trying to do. But rest assure on one thing. Neutralizing The U.S. Air Force and its stealth fleet is a priority for the Chinese and other U.S. adversaries.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Everybody knows that the U.S. version of capitalism is rougher and tougher than is the norm in other affluent countries. The rich are richer here, the poor poorer and the welfare state less exhaustive. Not surprisingly, the U.S. scores poorly versus other rich nations in terms of health outcomes, education levels and other such metrics.
Defenders of the U.S. approach can point, though, to the fact that per-capita gross domestic product has remained higher in the U.S. than in all but a few small nations with unique characteristics (Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, etc.) — so much higher that even with the less-equal income distribution here, most Americans continue to have higher incomes than their peers in other large, affluent countries.
WNU editor: I live in Canada and I travel to the U.S. a lot. My brother lives in the Bay area, and I also get a lot of feedback from him. I would say that Canada's middle class is better off than the American middle class, but the trend has changed in the past 2 or 3 years, and not for the best. Open borders and massive immigration have put strains on the middle class .... from now having people who are willing to work for less, to housing now becoming incredibly expensive (there are only so many homes and immigrants have to live somewhere). It is also incredibly difficult now for Canadians who are in the middle to become more affluent. High taxes and onerous regulations on small businesses make that impossible, and I do not see that changing any time soon (even if the Liberals under Prime Minister Trudeau lose the Federal election this October).
Back in the days of the Fed's QE, much of thinking analyst world (the non-thinking segment would merely accept everything that the Fed did without question, after all their livelihood depended on it), was focused on how massive, and shocking, the Fed's direct intervention in capital markets had become. And while that was certainly true, what we showed back in November 2013 in "Chart Of The Day: How China's Stunning $15 Trillion In New Liquidity Blew Bernanke's QE Out Of The Water" is that whereas the Fed had injected some $2.5 trillion in liquidity in the US banking system, China had blown the US central bank out of the water, with no less than $15 trillion in increases to Chinese bank assets, all at the behest of a juggernaut of new credit creation - be it new yuan loans, shadow debt, corporate bonds, or any other form of debt that makes up China's broad Total Social Financing aggregate.
WNU Editor: I concur with the above analysis, and one that I always point out when I give a presentation on what is the real state of the Chinese economy. During President Obama's term the U.S. Federal pumped into the financial system about 3 trillion dollars. This cheap money boosted the stock market and other investments, but now that money is being flushed out of the system slowing growth and investment .... a point that President Trump makes all the time (and one that he is correct on). The Chinese Fed's QE is completely beyond what the U.S. has done, pumping around $15 trillion dollars to stimulate its financial markets and investments. How the Chinese are going to balance all of this out is beyond me. But I do know that the current trade war is going to cripple China's ability to balance its books if this continues, and the resulting crash will have global implications. And as for those who think China will one day be a reserve currency .... I say dream on. This type of policy all but guarantees that China will never be trusted to be a reserve currency.
EUROSCEPTICISM looks set to join Germany's political mainstream after the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany made strong gains in two eastern state elections.
ANGELA MERKEL's power was dealt a huge blow when support for her conservatives and Social Democrat coalition partners bled support to the far right in two state elections - a double blow to her already unstable ruling alliance
HURRICANE DORIAN is battering the Bahamas as it tracks towards the US east coast, but three more storms are currently on the verge of becoming hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.
HURRICANE Dorian is packing "catastrophic" winds across the Bahamas as its movement stalls before moving to Florida, the NOAA's National Hurricane Centre said.
TROPICAL STORM JULIETTE is churning through the Eastern Pacific and is expected to become a hurricane today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned.
HURRICANE Dorian continues devastating the Bahamas as a "life-threatening" storm, while the US state of Florida is bracing for a "dangerous" hit of the second most powerful Atlantic storm ever recorded.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — An Afghan official says U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has met with President Ashraf Ghani in the capital, Kabul, to brief him on the latest round of talks with the Taliban on ending America’s longest war.
Ghani spokesman Sediq Sediqqi confirms that the meeting took place Sunday night at the presidential palace shortly after Khalilzad arrived from Qatar, where the ninth round of talks ended without a final deal.
Sediqqi on Monday said the palace soon will release details of the meeting.
Khalilzad over the weekend said the U.S. and the militant group are “at the threshold of an agreement” even as the Taliban attacked the capitals of Kunduz and Baghlan provinces in the north.
Intra-Afghan talks that include the Afghan government are meant to follow a U.S.-Taliban agreement.
The Demosisto party of high-profile activist Joshua Wong called a student strike Monday—the first day of the new school year—in a bid to maintain momentum in Hong Kong’s intensifying democratic rebellion.
Local media estimated that as many as 10,000 students from some 200 secondary and tertiary institutions were joining the class boycott, which was co-organized with two student groups. As the morning got underway, pupils from both elite private colleges and government secondary schools braved the stormy weather to join hands in human chains around their campuses.
At Queen’s College, one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most prestigious schools, alumni turned out with current students in protest, chanting “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time!” before singing the school song.
At Chinese University, students prepared to boycott classes in defiance of an appeal from university authorities to call off the action because of the risk of unrest. Student Union chair, Jacky So, reportedly declared “If going against an evil law and tyrannical rule gives us the name of rioters, we gladly accept.”
Students at St. Francis’ Canossian College, the alma mater of Hong Kong’s beleaguered top official Carrie Lam, knelt in the rain and held signs calling for the administration to meet the protesters’ demands, one of which is Lam’s ouster.
There were reports of police showing up at several schools to search striking students, while staff of two major hospitals held sit-ins in support of the student strike.
At a rally in the afternoon, students held signs reading “Hong Kong people cannot back down” and “Strike Hong Kong,” while teachers took to the stage to exhort students to continue their struggle.
Ng Mei-lan, a government secondary school teacher, said: “I have been on the front lines … I’ve inhaled [all the tear gas] you have inhaled. I can’t run as fast as you can but I can still run, so I try. I never thought that as a civil servant, a middle aged teacher that I would be so changed by this movement.”
Chan Chi-chung, a former school principal, declared: “If you think that striking is the right and logical thing to do, then we are right behind you, supporting you all the way.”
As schools struggled to get classes underway, commuters faced longer journeys to work after protesters began disrupting the city’s subway network. Police were called to several stations after protesters jammed compartment doors to prevent trains from leaving.
The actions come after a chaotic weekend of unrest that saw police deploy water cannon and tear gas at masked radicals who broke away from a march Saturday to lob petrol bombs at the city’s main government offices. Extremists also set fire to barricades and provoked police into firing live warning rounds.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Hong Kong’s top security official, John Lee, said “radical protestors” were acting lawlessly and that “their violent actions are escalating to a point of terrorism.”
On Sunday, protesters severely disrupted operations at Hong Kong International Airport, forcing the cancellation of train and bus services and leaving arriving passengers with no means of making it into the city center. Traffic to the airport was also at a standstill, with reports of desperate travelers abandoning their vehicles on the highway and trudging many kilometers to the airport, wheeling their suitcases behind them.
After leaving the airport, black-clad demonstrators—who also targeted the facility last month, shutting it down for two days—ransacked a major train station and burned the Chinese flag.
The city’s train operator has come under sustained attack from protesters, who accuse it of arbitrarily shutting down stations to prevent them from freely moving around the city. At a press conference Monday, transport secretary Frank Chan Fan said 32 stations, or a third of all stations on the network, had been damaged.
At the same conference, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said the government had issued its “strongest condemnation of the barbaric behavior of protestors.” He also voiced disapproval of the student strike.
“Schools are not a place for expressing political demands,” he said. “There is nothing good that will come out of the strike.”
Meanwhile, in a boost for the democracy movement, a court decided that Demosisto activist Agnes Chow, 22, was eligible to stand for election to the enclave’s legislature. Recently arrested and bailed on charges of inciting an illegal assembly, Chow was banned from standing in a 2018 by-election because her party calls for self-determination—a stance that authorities say is incompatible with the oath of allegiance she would have to swear if she was elected to the law-making body.
The Hong Kong protests, which are now in their 13th week, began as a series of demonstrations against a divisive bill, but quickly escalated into a rebellion against the unrepresentative local government and a broad push for political freedom. Many protesters seek full autonomy or even independence for the enclave, whose 7.2 million people are linguistically and culturally distinct from mainland Chinese.
In response, Beijing has stepped up its rhetoric against the former British possession, which was retroceded to China in 1997 after 156 years of colonial rule. On Sunday, the state news agency Xinhua warned that “the end is coming for those attempting to disrupt Hong Kong and antagonize China.”
Hongkongers remain defiant however, especially the young.
“The government has already shown us that peaceful protests are useless,” Issac Cheng, vice chair of Demosisto, told TIME. “This has led students to think of an escalated form of demonstration, which is what this is. The strike shows our determination to continue fighting.”
Activists plan to call the strike every Monday going forward.
—With reporting by Aria Hangyu Chen and Hillary Leung / Hong Kong
(SANAA, Yemen) — The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen staged multiple airstrikes on a detention center operated by the Houthi rebels in the southwestern province of Dhamar, killing at least 100 people and wounding dozens more Sunday, officials and the rebels’ health ministry said.
Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, suggested that the death toll could be higher after visiting the site of the attack, saying relatively few detainees survived. A Red Cross statement said the detention center held around 170 detainees. It said 40 of those were being treated for injuries and the rest were presumed dead.
“Witnessing this massive damage, seeing the bodies lying among the rubble, was a real shock. Anger and sadness were natural reactions,” Rauchenstein said.
The attack was the deadliest so far this year by the coalition, according to the Yemen Data Project, a database tracking the war. The coalition has faced international criticism for airstrikes that have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, killing thousands of Yemeni civilians.
Saudi Arabia intervened on behalf of the internationally recognized Yemini government in March 2015, after the Iran-backed Houthis took the capital. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of famine and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The attack comes as the Saudi-led coalition’s partners — chiefly the United Arab Emirates and an array of Yemeni militias — are increasingly at odds over the war’s aims. The past weeks have seen heavy fighting in Yemen’s south between Saudi-backed and Emirati-backed forces.
Yemeni officials said Sunday’s strikes targeted a college in the city of Dhamar, which the Houthi rebels were using as a detention center. The coalition denied it had struck a detention center, saying it had targeted a military site used by the rebels to restore drones and missiles.
“We were sleeping and around midnight, there were maybe three, or four, or six strikes. They were targeting the jail, I really don’t know the strike numbers,” wounded detainee Nazem Saleh said while on a stretcher in a local hospital. He said the Red Cross had visited the center two times before the airstrike.
A line of over a dozen white body bags were laid out in the rubble beside flattened buildings and crushed cars, while rescue workers dug through the debris.
“We have seen now under the ruble that there are still many, many dead bodies that its very, very difficult to extract,” said Rauchenstein.
The U.N. human rights office for Yemen said 52 detainees were among the dead, and at least 68 detainees were still missing.
The Red Cross, which inspects detention centers as part of its global mission, said it had visited detainees at the site in the past.
Former detainees said the Houthis had previously used the site to store and repair weapons.
Youssef al-Hadhri, a spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry, said at least seven airstrikes hit three buildings in the complex overnight.
The rebels’ Health Ministry said in a statement that more than 60 people were killed in Sunday’s airstrikes and another 50 wounded. Later in the day, health officials said the death toll climbed to 65. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The Saudi-led coalition said it had hit a military facility “in accordance with international humanitarian law,” and that “all precautionary measures were taken to protect civilians.”
Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the coalition, was quoted by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV as denying the target was a prison.
Local residents said family members arrested for being critical of the Houthis were imprisoned in the detention center. They said at least seven airstrikes hit the area.
Omat al-Salam al-Haj, a mother of a detainee, said the center housed anti-Houthi political detainees who were rounded up over suspicions of cooperating with the coalition.
Former detainee Mansour al-Zelai said the Houthis were restoring weapons in and close to the detention center.
Houthi rebels have been using scores of sites as detention centers, including schools, mosques, and houses, filling them with thousands of political detainees to use later in prisoner-swap deals.
The Associated Press documented that many of these sites were rife with torture and abuses including Dhamar’s community college.
Former detainees recalled torture and abuses inside the detention center, which came under a series of airstrikes before.
Rights groups have also previously documented that Houthis place civilian detainees in detention centers as human shields by placing them next to army barracks, under constant threat of airstrikes.
In October 2016, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a prison complex in the Red Sea port of Hodeida, killing at least 58 people, mostly prisoners. At the time, the coalition said the prison complex was used as a command center for Houthis.
On Sunday, Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi in Amman to discuss her efforts to relaunch negotiations after years of stalemate between Yemen’s warring sides.
“Yemen has been at the center of my attention,” she said in a statement.
Wallstrom also met with Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and other government officials in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, according the official Yemeni news agency SABA.
Airstrikes have also punctuated the infighting between erstwhile coalition allies in southern Yemen.
On Thursday, Emirati jets bombed convoys of Saudi-backed government forces, killing scores in series of airstrikes to prevent them from retaking the interim capital, Aden, from militias backed by the UAE.
The Emirati strikes sparked popular anger in Yemen against the UAE. Activists launched an online petition collecting signatures to “kick Emiratis out of Yemen” and members of the Yemeni government issued a statement demanding the president end the UAE’s role in Yemen.
On Sunday, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash posted a reminder on Twitter that the coalition’s goal is to “confront the challenge of the Houthi coup.”
(BERLIN) — The U.N.’s top refugee official urged India to ensure no one is left stateless by the exclusion of nearly 2 million people from a citizenship list in Assam state.
“Any process that could leave large numbers of people without a nationality would be an enormous blow to global efforts to eradicate statelessness,” Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement issued Sunday in Geneva.
He urged India to ensure no one ends up stateless, “including by ensuring adequate access to information, legal aid, and legal recourse in accordance with the highest standards of due process.”
About 31.1 million people were included on the list Assam’s government released Saturday, omitting 1.9 million. The list — known as the National Register of Citizens, or NRC — is unique to Assam state, in India’s far northeast bordering Bangladesh.
The government has said it compiled the list to detect and deport undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh but has also clarified that those left off the final citizenship list won’t be declared foreigners.
It’s unclear what happens next. Those left off the list can appeal to unique tribunals, but if they lose, they could be sent to detention centers being set up by the government.
(JERUSALEM) — Hezbollah militants on Sunday fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles into Israel, prompting a reprisal of heavy Israeli artillery fire in a rare burst of fighting between the bitter enemies.
Although the shooting quickly subsided without casualties on either side, the situation remained volatile. The bitter enemies, which fought a monthlong war in 2006, have indicated they do not want to go to war but appeared on a collision course in recent days after a pair of Israeli strikes against Hezbollah. The militant group vowed it would retaliate.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri held telephone calls with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as well as an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron urging the international community to calm the situation. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said it was in contact with all sides and urged restraint.
U.N. spokesman Andrea Tenenti said later that “calm has returned in the area” and the U.N. peacekeeping force is maintaining its presence on the ground together with the Lebanese army.
By nightfall, the fighting appeared to have halted. But Israeli officials said troops remained on high alert.
“We are consulting about the next steps,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “I have ordered that we be prepared for any scenario. We will decide on the next steps pending developments.”
Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Kassem, said Sunday night that the group was committed to retaliating whenever it comes under attack. “Hezbollah wants to preserve deterrence and the rules of engagement in order to prevent something worse from happening,” he said.
Israel considers Iran to be its greatest enemy, and Iran-backed Hezbollah to be its most immediate military threat. Hezbollah has a battle-tested army that has been fighting alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Syria’s civil war, and it is believed to possess an arsenal of some 130,000 missiles and rockets.
Throughout the Syrian war, Israel has acknowledged carrying out scores of airstrikes in Syria aimed at preventing alleged Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah. But in recent weeks, Israel is believed to have widened its campaign and struck Iranian or Hezbollah targets in Iraq and Lebanon as well.
Last weekend, Israeli warplanes thwarted what Israel said was an attempt by Iran to launch a squad of attack drones based in Syria. Two Hezbollah operatives were killed in the strike, and Hezbollah has sworn it will not let the killings go without a reply.
Hezbollah also promised to respond to what it says was an Israeli drone strike in Beirut last week. Israeli media have said the strike destroyed a “planetary mixer,” a sophisticated piece of equipment needed to manufacture guided missiles.
“The Islamic Resistance carried out the secretary general’s promise to retaliate for the two aggressions,” Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV presenter said Sunday, referring to the recent Israeli strikes.
The Israeli army believes that Iran and Hezbollah are racing to establish missile-production factories in Lebanon — a claim that Hezbollah denies.
In Sunday’s fighting, Israel said Hezbollah fired two or three anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military base along the border. The army said the base, as well as a military ambulance, suffered damage.
The military said it responded with about 100 artillery shells, as well as helicopter fire, toward the areas from where the missiles had been launched.
Israel has bolstered its forces along the Lebanese border, and Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said Sunday’s fighting was one of the “scenarios” Israel had anticipated. He said that while the current round of fighting appeared to be over, the deeper “strategic” situation remained the same and that forces remained on high alert.
In Lebanon, the Israeli shelling was concentrated on areas close to the border near the villages of Maroun el-Ras and Yaroun, triggering some fires.
Hezbollah said the unit that carried out the attack on Israel was named after two operatives who were killed in the Israeli airstrike on Syria on Aug. 24.
Earlier Sunday, the Lebanese army had claimed an Israeli drone violated the country’s airspace and dropped flammable material on fields, triggering a fire that was extinguished shortly afterward by residents.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a bruising, monthlong war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Despite their deep hostility, they have largely refrained from direct fighting for the past 13 years.
In January 2015, Israel launched an airstrike against a Hezbollah convoy in the Syrian Golan Heights, killing at least six militants and an Iranian general. Later that month Hezbollah retaliated by firing anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military convoy, killing two Israeli soldiers.
Over the past year, Israel uncovered and destroyed what it said was a network of cross-border Hezbollah attack tunnels.
During Sunday’s fighting, the military encouraged residents near the northern border with Lebanon to stay indoors and ordered public bomb shelters to open. By late Sunday, it lifted most restrictions, saying only that farmers should stay away from the immediate border area.
(COATZACOALCOS, Mexico) — Mexico’s drug war appears to be back — and it may be worse this time around than in the bloody years of the government’s 2006-2012 offensive against drug cartels.
Back then, the worst of the violence was confined to a few cities. Now it is spread out throughout the country. Once it was not uncommon for gangs to kill adults but leave children unharmed. Now, the killing of children alongside their parents has become all too frequent.
Perhaps the most disconcerting change: Bloody cartel violence outraged Mexicans and captured international attention for the drug war, which saw 27,000 homicides during its peak in 2011. Today, even though the number of Mexico’s homicides soared to near 35,000 last year, the bloodshed seems to draw less attention and indignation.
It has all left many Mexicans wondering which way to turn.
That was evident this week in Coatzacoalcos, an oil industry city in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz where residents say gangs have been fighting over turf and extorting business owners with threats of violence. Late Tuesday, suspected members of the Jalisco cartel showed up at the Caballo Blanco nightclub, blocked its exits and set a fire that killed 28 people trapped inside, apparently because the owner had either refused to make extortion payments or sold drugs from another gang.
Vanessa Galindo Blas lost her common-law husband, Erick Hernández Enriquez, to the blaze. Both were natives of Coatzacoalcos, but had been discussing moving away.
VICTORIA RAZO—AFP/Getty ImagesRelatives and friends attend the funeral of Erick Hernandez at a cemetery in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz State, Mexico, on August 29, 2019.
“We had talked about leaving here for somewhere safer, so our kids could have a better future,” Galindo Blas said Thursday as she stretched her hands out over Erick’s bare metal coffin. On it rested a photo of him wearing an “I Love Coatzacoalcos” T-shirt.
But they could never agree on a place to move, in part because violence is now a problem across much of Mexico, so no place is really safe.
From 2006 to 2012, much of the drug war killing occurred in a string of northern Mexico cities — Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Culiacan, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo. “Now it is more dispersed, and that also makes it harder to control,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico.
But counting down all the similarities — deadly arson attacks, bodies left piled in heaps or hung from overpasses, massacres at parties, beheading videos posted on social media — the parallels between now and then are all too clear. “It’s like deja vu all over again,” said Hope.
Another disturbing trend is that young children are being gunned down by killers targeting adults. The Sinaloa and Juarez cartels once prided themselves on their targeted killings, which riddled intended targets with bullets while leaving family members untouched.
Now, children are being killed with chilling frequency. In June, a young boy was killed along with his father in Sonora state. In July, a 10-year-old was killed during a robbery in Puebla state. In August, gunmen burst into a home in Ciudad Juarez and fired 123 bullets that killed three girls, aged 14, 13 and 4, along with an adult male who apparently was the real target.
Two years ago, Coatzacoalcos made headlines across Mexico when a man, his wife and three young children were gunned down by a drug cartel. In contrast, the shooting of the three Ciudad Juarez girls drew less attention.
“It seems like we are becoming accustomed to this, to people killing children. I don’t want to become accustomed to that,” said Lenit Enriquez Orozco, an activist in Coatzacoalcos. Her brother, Jonith Enriquez Orozco, has been missing since he was abducted on Sept. 25, 2015. There has been no trace of him since, even though her group, the Mothers’ Collective of Searchers, has hunted for traces in clandestine burial grounds across Veracruz.
Hope notes Mexico has a lamentable record in investigating and prosecuting killings — over 90 percent of crime go unpunished.
Bernardino Hernandez—APIn this June 2, 2019 file photo, the body of a bloodied man lies in the middle of a street where police and forensic workers secure the crime scene in Acapulco, Mexico.
“The risk involved in killing a man, or killing his whole family, is the same,” the analyst said. Under that logic, wiping out an entire family “has its advantages. It is more intimidating, it is easier to carry out, and it makes escaping easier.”
The relentless violence has numbed many people.
In 2010, gunmen burst into a party of high school students in Ciudad Juarez’s Villas de Salvarcar neighborhood, killing 15 in what appeared to have been a case of mistaken identity. The bloodbath provoked large, angry street protests and a visit by an apologetic President Felipe Calderón.
This year, in April, gunmen burst into a party in Minatitlan, near Coatzacoalcos, and killed 14 people. Days later, a few dozen people held a subdued peace march. “It’s politics as usual, nothing happened. This should generate generalized indignation” against cartels and government leaders alike, Hope said.
He attributes the muted response to new President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s high approval ratings, topping 70% in some polls nine months into his term. Such ratings “tend to intimidate expressions of indignation,” Hope said.
Many Mexicans also are willing to give López Obrador the benefit of the doubt as even the president acknowledges that violent crime is the most serious challenge he faces. To the extent possible, López Obrador has avoided violent confrontations with gangs that were often blamed for spawning violence during Calderón’s 2006-2012 administration. López Obrador has even personally congratulated troops who allowed themselves to be abducted and disarmed by vigilante groups that are often linked to cartels.
He insists his go-slow policies of reducing youth unemployment will eventually solve the root causes of the problem better than declaring another frontal offensive against drug cartels.
RODRIGO ARANGUA—AFP/Getty ImagesA soldier stands guard next to pictures of missing persons hanging from a rope in front of the National Palace during the commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared in Mexico City, on August 30, 2019.
Carlos Ángel Ortiz is one of those who doesn’t fault López Obrador. “It is like the president says, ‘Only the people can save the people,” Ortiz said as he made plans to bury his niece, Xóchitl Irineo Gomez, a dancer at the nightclub who died of smoke inhalation, leaving behind a son and a daughter ages 7 and 3.
“We have to look out for each other, and report crimes more,” Ortiz said.
The poor provide López Obrador’s base, and it is that group who suffers the most from crime. Irineo Gomez was the sole support of not only her children, but her elderly parents. Erick Hernández Enriquez left little behind for his family aside from a modest, three-room cinderblock house.
“There are a lot of empty houses in Coatzacoalcos, a lot of people have left,” said Maria Fabiola Davila, a civic activist. “Those who can afford it move to another country.”
(WARSAW, Poland) — Germany’s president expressed deep remorse for the suffering his nation inflicted on Poland and the rest of Europe during World War II, warning of the dangers of nationalism as world leaders gathered Sunday in the country where the war started at incalculable costs.
“This war was a German crime,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Poland’s top leaders, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders at a 80th anniversary ceremony marking World’s War II’s outbreak.
Also in attendance were elderly Polish war veterans wearing military uniforms and a Holocaust survivor wearing a yellow Star of David and the striped clothes that prisoners wore at Nazi German death camps.
Steinmeier expressed his sorrow over the mass killings Adolf Hitler’s regime committed in Poland, which paid a huge price for being the place war began on Sept. 1, 1939. The German president expressed gratitude to Poles for the gestures of forgiveness Poland has bestowed in return.
“I bow in mourning to the suffering of the victims,” Steinmeier said. “I ask for forgiveness for Germany’s historical debt. I affirm our lasting responsibility.”
Two weeks after the German invasion, the Soviet army invaded Poland from the east, putting the country under a dual occupation that came with atrocities committed by two invaders. By the war’s end nearly six years later, about 6 million Polish citizens had been killed, more than half of them Jews.
Polish President Andrzej Duda recalled Poland’s immense suffering and he appealed to those assembled not to close their eyes now to imperial tendencies and border changes imposed through force.
Duda cited aggression against Georgia and Ukraine, and though he didn’t name Russia, it was clear he found that country at fault as the aggressor.
“Recently in Europe we are dealing with a return of imperialist tendencies, with attempts to change borders by force, with aggression against countries,” Duda said. “Turning a blind eye is not the recipe for preserving peace. It is a simple way to embolden aggressive personalities, a simple way to, in fact, give consent to further attacks.”
German president had a modern-day warning of his own — about the dangers of nationalism — and described European unity as a guarantee for peace in the future.
Polish authorities didn’t invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend anniversary events because of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s recent rehabilitation of the Stalinist era, and a pact Soviet leader Josef Stalin made with Hitler that led to Poland’s dismemberment in 1939, were apparently also behind the decisions not to invite Putin. That represented a change from 10 years ago, when Putin was invited amid attempts to thaw relations between the West and Russia at the time.
President Donald Trump had originally been scheduled to attend the event, but canceled as Hurricane Dorian barreled toward the U.S. Pence spoke on behalf of the United States in Warsaw.
“While the hearts of every American are with our fellow citizens in the path of a massive storm, today we remember how the gathering storm of the 20th century broke into warfare and invasion followed by unspeakable hardship and heroism of the Polish people,” he said.
Pence said the Polish people “never lost hope” and “never gave in to despair.”
The “character, faith, and determination of the Polish people made all the difference,” Pence said. “Your oppressors tried to break you, but Poland could not be broken.”
During the observances in Warsaw, church bells tolled across a capital that German forces razed to the ground decades ago. Polish and foreign leaders laid wreaths, and one by one rang a bell in memory.
The observances started at 4:40 a.m. at the sites of the first German attacks — Wielun, a defenseless town, and minutes later on the Westerplatte Peninsula in Gdansk.
In Wielun, Steinmeier also voiced remorse, which Duda said provided “moral satisfaction.” He addressed his German counterpart.
“Mr. President, thank you for your presence and your attitude,” Duda said. “I can see a man who has come with humility, a bowed head in order to pay homage … to share the pain.”
Minutes later, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Frans Timmermans, a top European Union official, led an event on Westerplatte Peninsula, the Baltic Coast site where Polish troops put up resistance to fight the war’s first battle.
“Eighty years ago, unspeakable horrors were unleashed on the Polish population, unspeakable horrors that we need to remember to prevent them from recurring in Europe,” said Timmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission. “Can you imagine in this gathering that every fifth person sitting and standing here would suddenly disappear? This is what happened to the Polish nation at the hands of cruel Nazis who lost every understanding of humanity.”
(VATICAN CITY) — Where’s the pope? He’s stuck in a Vatican elevator.
Thousands of people who were gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional Sunday on-the-dot-of-noon appearance by Pope Francis were watching for the window of the Apostolic Palace to be thrown open so they could listen to the pope’s remarks and receive his blessing. But after seven minutes, people were looking at each other quizzically: no pope?
Then Francis popped out and answered their question: “First of all I must excuse myself for being late. I was blocked in an elevator for 25 minutes.”
Apparently referring to electrical power, Francis explained that there was a “drop in tension,” causing the elevator to get stuck.
“Thank God the firefighters intervened,” Francis said, referring to tiny Vatican City State’s own fire department.
He then asked for a round of applause for his rescuers, and went ahead with his regular remarks and blessings, concluding with an announcement that he has chosen 13 churchmen to become the Church’s newest cardinals.
The Vatican didn’t say if the pope was alone in the elevator or accompanied by any of his aides.
Pro-democracy protesters blockaded Hong Kong International Airport Sunday afternoon, disrupting transportation routes and briefly storming one of the terminals a day after violent clashes with police shook the city.
Several hundred black-clad demonstrators gathered outside the airport in the drizzly afternoon, chanting, “fight for freedom,” according to live feeds and reports from the scene. By gridlocking traffic and blocking trains and buses, protesters sought to once again bring one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs to a standstill after chaotic action there last month captured global attention.
According to local media reports, a group of masked protesters stormed into Terminal 1 and shattered a glass door around 1:20 p.m. before airport police pushed them back.
Outside the terminals, protesters jammed the streets with luggage trolleys and metal barriers. Live feeds from the scene showed crowds booing riot police, who accused demonstrators of hurling objects as well as insults.
On Twitter, the Hong Kong Police Force dubbed the protest an “unauthorized assembly” and recalled a court injunction put in place last month to stop obstruction of the airport after demonstrators occupying the terminals caused hundreds of flight cancellations.
On Sunday, an express rail line to the airport was suspended, while traffic snarled on a nearby bridge. In-town check-in services at Airport Express stations were also halted.
Around 4 p.m., police said the protesters were attempting to “paralyze traffic” with water-filled barriers and warned them to leave immediately. Reports of an impending police dispersal operation prompted some to walk away by foot.
The airport demonstration comes a day after violent battles between police and protesters erupted across the city. Protesters were seen throwing petrol bombs at the government headquarters and setting fires in the streets, while police charged into a subway station and indiscriminately clubbed passengers and fired pepper spray.
The long summer of protests in Hong Kong has grown increasingly violent over the 13 consecutive weeks of demonstrations. The latest round of unrest this weekend began with the arrests of a number of activists and lawmakers, as well as intensifying rhetoric from Beijing that has exacerbated fears about a possible intervention in the semiautonomous enclave.
While the protest movement began as a backlash to an unpopular extradition bill, it has since boiled over into a rebellion against the unrepresentative local government, with many calling for greater democracy or even independence from China.
Online, protesters are urging further disruption of traffic to the airport on Monday, while a citywide strike is planned Monday and Tuesday.
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