The ban on the Boeing 737 MAX becomes worldwide after US President Trump joins Canada and other countries in grounding the aircraft amid mounting global fears for the jets' airworthiness https://t.co/JG8FBQDIufpic.twitter.com/hpsJfviQyM
A replenishment-at-sea between @USNavy ships is a long process requiring the utmost skill and attention from the sailors coordinating it. Linked here is a time lapse of an #RAS between the #USSGreenBay and #USSAshland. pic.twitter.com/SqW43zuLWb
People gather to collect water released through a sewage drain that feeds into the Guaire River, which carries most of the city's wastewater, in Caracas, March 11, 2019. After five days without electricity to pump water, Venezuelans from working-class neighborhoods to upscale apartment towers are complaining of increasingly infrequent showers, unwashed dishes, and stinking toilets. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Simulations suggest the United States would lose to both Russia and China
The RAND Corporation with Pentagon support has carried out a war game simulation in which the United States loses to both Russia and China. The US and NATO are unable to stop an attack in the Balkans by the Russians, and the United States and its allies are unable to prevent the takeover of Taiwan by China.
These are the claims made by RAND. But is RAND right?
The RAND war game effort was led by David Ochmanek, a senior international and defense researcher at the RAND Corporation. From 2009 until 2014 he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development.
An inside source explains the logic behind the 2020 budget's most controversial call.
WASHINGTON: Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan made the hard call to retire the USS Truman decades early — cutting the Navy's carrier fleet by nine percent — to free up funding for new weapons more likely to survive a war with China, a senior defense official told Breaking Defense.
Shanahan took office telling staff his focus is "China, China, China." Beijing's growing arsenal of precision-guided missiles seems increasingly able to find and cripple a thousand-foot-long flattop — unless the US carrier stays out of China's range, in which case the fighter aircraft it carries can't reach their targets. (Fighters can be refueled in mid-air, but the tanker aircraft required are big, slow, and vulnerable, so they can't get close to China, either).
WNU Editor: I can understand the Pentagon's reasoning for retiring the USS Truman 25 years earlier .... saving money to buy other weapons. But Congress is not going to agree.
It's defense budget season for the world's major powers. This week, US President Donald Trump presented his request for military spending for fiscal year 2020, an unprecedented US$750 billion, including a whopping $174 billion slush fund known as the "overseas contingency operations" account (see my last column, Trump's slush-fund defense budget).
Now China has released its budget for military expenditures for 2019, and it, too, will reach an all-time high of 1.19 trillion yuan ($177.6 billion). This is a 7.5% rise over China's 2018 defense budget of 1.107 trillion yuan.
At issue is not the fact that Chinese military expenditures are going up, but by how much. Chinese defense spending has increased every year since the mid-1990s, but lately the annual rise has been slowing.
Two US B-52 bombers flew near contested islands in the South China Sea on Wednesday, according to US Pacific Air Forces, which oversees air operations in the region.
"Two B-52H Stratofortress bombers took off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and conducted routine training in the vicinity of the South China Sea March 13, 2019 (HST), before returning to base," a spokesperson for Pacific Air Forces said in a statement provided to CNN.
"US aircraft regularly operate in the South China Sea in support of allies, partners, and a free and open Indo-Pacific," the statement added.
It's the second time this month that US has carried out a bomber flight in the area. The earlier flight was the first involving a nuclear-capable B-52 over the South China Sea since November.
The path to peace is still long and tedious, but today Afghans have more reason to be hopeful than ever before.
After 16 days of talks in the Qatari capital Doha, US and Taliban negotiators have wrapped up their longest round of negotiations on March 12, signalling concrete progress towards a peace deal to end the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan.
LONDON (Reuters) - The British parliament on Wednesday rejected leaving the European Union without a deal, further weakening Prime Minister Theresa May and paving the way for a vote that could delay Brexit until at least the end of June.
After a day of high drama, MPs defied the government by voting 321 to 278 in favour of a motion that ruled out a potentially disorderly "no-deal" Brexit under any circumstances.
It went further than the government's position of keeping the threat of a "no-deal" Brexit on the negotiating table — a stance many in her party said was essential to push Brussels to make further concessions to the deal they have rejected.
* Two people 'with links to the CIA' identified in connection with Madrid break-in * Last month ten men allegedly broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid * They drew fake handguns as they tied up diplomatic staff and robbed dossiers * The raid took place just five days before the Trump-Kim nuclear summit in Hanoi
Two people identified in connection with a break-in at the North Korean embassy in Madrid have links to the US intelligence agency CIA, Spanish media claims.
The mysterious incident took place on February 22 just five days before the start of a nuclear summit between North Korea and the United States attended, among others, by Pyongyang's former ambassador to Spain Kim Hyok Chol.
Ten suspects allegedly broke into the embassy with fake handguns drawn, tying up diplomatic staff and stealing computers, the El Pais daily said.
'At least two of the ten assailants... have been identified and have ties with US secret services,' the paper said, citing sources from the police and Spain's intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI).
The House on Tuesday passed legislation that would require the Trump administration to investigate Russian President Vladimir Putin's wealth.
In a voice vote, lawmakers approved the Vladimir Putin Transparency Act, a bipartisan bill that accuses Putin of undermining democratic reforms in Russia.
"It is the sense of Congress that the United States should do more to expose the corruption of Vladimir Putin, whose ill-gotten wealth is perhaps the most powerful global symbol of his dishonesty and his persistent efforts to undermine the rule of law and democracy in the Russian Federation," the bill said.
An F-16 Fighting Falcon from the 555th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron takes off from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Aug. 22, 2017. (U.S. Air Force photo/Benjamin Gonsier)
US forces launched two "self-defense" airstrikes near an Afghan National Army check point in the Uruzgan province on Wednesday, according to a coalition spokesman.
The Afghan government issued a statement saying that five Afghan soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded in the strikes -- numbers the coalition is also accepting, an official told CNN.
US and coalition officials told CNN that the strikes were launched Wednesday morning local time after a US-Afghan convoy came under fire from friendly forces positioned near the check point. No US forces were killed during the incident.
"The US launched a precision airstrike near an Afghan National Army check point on Wednesday after Afghan and US forces came under fire and requested air support," according to Lt. Ubon Mendie, a spokesman for the US forces based in Afghanistan.
More than a dozen Republican senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would make it easier for Congress to terminate future national emergency declarations, days before the chamber will vote on President Trump's.
The legislation, spearheaded by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would require that Congress pass a resolution extending an emergency declaration after 30 days for it to continue; otherwise the declaration would be terminated.
"If Congress is troubled by recent emergency declarations made pursuant to the National Emergencies Act, they only have themselves to blame. Congress gave these legislative powers away in 1976 and it is far past time that we as an institution took them back. If we don't want our president acting like a king we need to start taking back the legislative powers that allow him to do so," Lee said in a statement.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukrainian comic actor and candidate in the upcoming presidential election, takes part in a production process of Servant of the People series in Kiev, Ukraine March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
KIEV (Reuters) - Comic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy has extended his lead in Ukraine's presidential election race, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday.
But support for the 41-year-old, a political novice, remains far below the level need to secure outright victory in the March 31 ballot, and most voters still do not expect him to become president, the SOCIS survey showed.
The poll by the Kiev-based research body showed Zelenskiy on 20.7 percent of votes, with incumbent Petro Poroshenko second on 13.2 percent and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko third on 11 percent.
A total of 39 candidates have registered for the election. If no candidate wins 50 percent, the top two will face each other in a run-off on April 21.
WNU Editor: My friends and family in Ukraine continue to tell me that he is going to first round of elections, and most likely the second round in April. I see him winning the first round .... but the second round is not going to be easy. Ukrainian elections are incredibly corrupt, and it is usually the best funded campaigner who wins. If history is any indication .... incumbent Petro Poroshenko will win the Presidency on the second ballot.
* Syrian Democratic Forces have helped thousands of women and children to flee * Shelling on Baghouz, eastern Syria, resumed Sunday as no one else tried to leave * SDF say they have evacuated some 3,000 capitulating jihadists in recent days
Around 3,000 ISIS fanatics have surrendered from the group's last holdout in Syria as air raids and shelling resumed after a brief lull today.
A ragged tent encampment in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz is all that remains of a once-sprawling ISIS 'caliphate' declared in 2014 across large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been trying to crush holdout ISIS fighters for weeks but the mass outpouring of men, women and children from the riverside hamlet has bogged down its advance.
* MPs will hold more Brexit votes tonight after Theresa May said they must decide whether to accept No Deal * But Mrs May pulled out of presenting her own motion and handed the job to Environment Secretary Gove * The Prime Minister will vote against No Deal happening on March 29 but say it must remain on the table * Tory MPs have a free vote on May's plan and a rival amendment aimed at uniting the Conservative Party * EU Brexit negotiator has already rejected the alternative plan known as the Malthouse Compromise * May is ordering her MPs to vote against a cross party plan to rule out a No Deal Brexit in all circumstances
Theresa May saved her voice and pulled out of opening the debate ahead of today's No Deal vote as Eurosceptics and Remainers went into battle over Brexit in the Commons.
The Prime Minister asked her Environment Secretary Michael Gove to step in - but Mrs May sat behind him throughout as he backed her motion that Britain should not leave the EU on March 29 without a deal - but keep No Deal on the table if talks still falter after a likely Article 50 extension.
Speaker John Bercow has selected two amendments to Theresa May's motion - one by Tory Dame Caroline Spelman rejecting a No Deal Brexit at any time and under any circumstances and the other in the name of former Tory minister Damian Green to delay Brexit day from March 29 to May 22 to give time for preparations to leave without a deal.
The extremists once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq, but now thousands of them have handed themselves in. Kurdish-led units are reportedly preparing a final assault on the last "Islamic State" holdout.
Some 3,000 members of the "Islamic State" (IS) have left the group's last holdout in Syria to surrender to Kurdish-led forces.
"[The] number of Daesh (IS) members [who have] surrendered to us since yesterday evening has risen to 3,000," Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman Mustefa Bali said Tuesday.
The SDF temporarily halted airstrikes and shelling on IS-controlled Baghouz in eastern Syria on Tuesday to allow people to leave the village to hand themselves over.
SDF forces, which are backed by a US-led coalition, have been bombarding Baghouz since Sunday.
A crane moves the lower stern into place on the USS John F. Kennedy at Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia, making the aircraft carrier 50% structurally complete, June 22, 2017. US Navy
* President Donald Trump's $750 billion defense budget is the largest ever submitted in dollar terms. * The proposal budget directs more money toward ships for the Navy and less on aircraft — particularly on Boeing's newly arrived KC-46 tanker.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump's $750 billion defense budget includes more money to build ships, fulfilling a campaign promise to strengthen the Navy, but also cuts the number of Boeing KC-46 tanker jets, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
The defense spending request to Congress is the largest ever in dollar terms, but not after being adjusted for inflation, and is meant to counter the growing strength of the Chinese and Russian militaries.
The Navy saw an increase of 5%, or $9.9 billion, in top-line funding to kick off a quicker pace of ship construction, including aircraft carriers made by Huntington Ingalls Industries, and Virginia and Columbia class nuclear submarines made by Huntington and General Dynamics.
The US military conducted an airstrike in Somalia on Monday after a Somali-led force and its accompanying US military advisers were attacked by Al-Shabaab militants.
The strike killed eight Al-Shabaab fighters, US Africa Command, which oversees US military operations on the continent, said Tuesday. "US service members were present during the ground operation in an advisory capacity. All US service members are accounted for and are unharmed," the statement added.
The US has approximately 500 troops in Somalia, primarily in advisory roles.
At least 244 fighters from the al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab have been killed in 25 airstrikes so far in 2019, according to figures released by US Africa Command.
* An internal review found that the US Navy and its industry partners are "under cyber siege" from Chinese, Russian, and Iranian hackers, among others, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. * Chinese hackers, accused of stealing boatloads of sensitive data on US military projects over the years, are reportedly considered the primary threat. * The review paints a dire picture, one that comes despite neither the Navy nor the Pentagon knowing the full extent of the damage.
An internal US Navy review concluded that the service and its various industry partners are "under cyber siege" from Chinese hackers who are building Beijing's military capabilities while eroding the US's advantage, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Chinese hackers have repeatedly hit the Navy, defense contractors, and even universities that partner with the service.
"We are under siege," a senior Navy official told The Journal. "People think it's much like a deadly virus — if we don't do anything, we could die."
But not for long: Missiles are everywhere in the U.S. Defense Department's budget proposal for 2020. The emphasis on long-range, guided munitions should please critics of Pentagon's war-planning. Experts have warned that in combat with a high-tech foe, U.S. forces quickly would run out of ammo.
Missiles are everywhere in the U.S. Defense Department's budget proposal for 2020 .
The emphasis on long-range, guided munitions should please critics of Pentagon's war-planning. Experts have warned that in combat with a high-tech foe, U.S. forces quickly would run out of ammo.
"The [fiscal year] 2020 budget funds preferred munitions at the maximum production rate," the office of acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan stated.
* Video taken by Officer Chris Bol of the California Highway Patrol shows an F-16 Fighting Falcon blasting past his patrol car on an empty highway. * These low-altitude flybys occur regularly in this particular area and are often picked up on radar. * Bol's radar went in and out, apparently reading 250 mph at one point, the California Highway Patrol station in the California desert suburb of Bishop told Business Insider.
A California patrolman's radar apparently flipped out on an empty stretch of highway over the weekend, which was odd because there wasn't another car in sight. But then an F-16 Fighting Falcon came flying low and fast past his location.
A video taken by Officer Chris Bol and shared by the California Highway Patrol station in the California desert suburb of Bishop shows the F-16 making a pass — not the first, as the officer filming has his camera ready to catch the fighter flying by his Ford Explorer.
* Venezuela is currently dealing with nationwide blackouts that have lasted for days. * The embattled government of President Nicolas Maduro has blamed the outages on sabotage. * But power cuts have become common as Venezuela's electrical industry loses investment and know-how.
How did this blackout begin? What started the event?
There is no official information. The regime only says this is an act of sabotage, and that US Senator Marco Rubio and the Venezuelan opposition are to blame for it.
From people inside the electric industry, we know that an overheat alarm was triggered between the San Geronimo B and Malena substations, which are like nodes. San Geronimo B is just South of Valle de La Pascua (Guarico state, central plains); Malena is a bit in the middle of nowhere, between Bolivar's Trocal 19 and the Orinoco River.
From San Geronimo B substation, comes the electric load to power all the TVs, light bulbs, blenders, etc. At Malena substation end the cables that come directly from the turning water wheels of the Guri dam. If you follow the lines from Guri, the country's main dam South of Ciudad Guayana, they go North from Guri to Malena and San Geronimo, and from there it splits into several lines going to the central region and then to the rest of the country (East and West).
This is the most convincing video yet on how buzzword technologies could actually become useful for 21st century armor troopers.
This hype video is a rare blend of funny and fascinating. And it might just show us the future of armored warfare.
Behold Israeli defense contractor Rafael's new promo for the company's Advanced Suite for Armored Fighting Vehicles. The clip is a vision of how automation, sensors, new self-defense technologies, and giant screens could revolutionize the way soldiers fight from armored vehicles.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — After their surprise retirement announcements, two K-pop stars were facing police questioning Thursday over interlocking sex scandals that have fascinated South Korea.
Live TV footage showed solo singer Jung Joon-young arriving at a Seoul police station where more than 100 journalists were waiting for him. Police say they are investigating allegations that the 29-year-old of secretly filming himself having sex with women and sharing the footage with friends in private group chats.
“I feel very sorry for causing concerns to the people and will faithfully undergo an investigation,” Jung told reporters before entering the station. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Jung issued a statement Wednesday saying he videotaped such footage without consent from the women in the clips and apologizing to the victims and everyone he disappointed and angered. He said he was retiring from the entertainment industry.
Jung’s scandal flared while police were investigating fellow K-pop star and entrepreneur Seungri, the youngest member of the five-man group Big Bang, over an allegation that he attempted to arrange illegal sexual services for his business investors.
Seungri, whose real name is Lee Seung-hyun, appeared at the police station later Thursday, where he apologized and bowed deeply. The 28-year-old has denied the allegation, but he announced his retirement on Monday as his scandal grew.
Media reports have said Seungri was among the men in a Kakao Talk group chatroom where Jung posted his sex videos. Police said there were several Kakao Talk chatrooms involved but didn’t elaborate.
The scandals have highlighted a dark side of South Korea’s booming yet ultra-competitive entertainment industry. South Korean pop songs, TV dramas and films are hugely popular in Asia and beyond, but male stars have faced allegations of sexual assault and abuse and reports have been made that female entertainers and trainees are forced to provide sexual services to men in power.
Many K-pop stars are recruited by talent agencies as teenagers, some when they are elementary school students, and they often sleep, eat and train together before making a debut. Some suicides have occurred among celebrities in the industry.
Big Bang has been one of the most successful bands in K-pop since its debut in 2006, attracting huge, loyal followings in Asia and around the world. Forbes magazine reported in June 2016 that the band took home $44 million in pretax earnings in the previous year.
Seungri has been engaged in diverse business ventures, including a ramen franchise and a dance academy, and enjoyed displaying his lavish lifestyle.
Big Bang is on temporary hiatus as its four other members carry out about two years of military or alternative services, a requirement for all able-bodied men in South Korea. Seungri is set to start his mandatory military service on March 25.
By law, the ongoing police investigation cannot prevent Seungri from joining the army unless he’s formally arrested before March 25 or voluntarily requests for a delay of his enlistment.
South Korea’s police chief Min Gap Ryong told lawmakers Thursday that he would seek a joint investigation with military authorities if Seungri joins the army as scheduled and avoids an arrest.
Min said police would try to get to the bottom of all the allegations.
China’s move to block a fresh attempt by the United Nations Security Council to designate the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed as a global terrorist has intensified pressure on the tense relationship between New Delhi and Beijing.
“We are disappointed by this outcome,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “We will continue to pursue all available avenues to ensure that terrorist leaders who are involved in heinous attacks on our citizens are brought to justice.”
The Pakistan-based terrorist group claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 suicide car bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 40 members of its security forces, bringing the volatile nations to the brink of a full-blown war. India launched airstrikes to destroy insurgent bases inside Pakistan, prompting Pakistan to retaliate, leading to an unprecedented clash between warplanes from both sides. An Indian pilot was captured by Pakistan and subsequently released.
While the possibility of a worsening military stand-off between the nuclear-armed neighbors reduced in recent weeks, India has continued to press for action against Masood Azhar, the group’s chief. Pakistan has been at pains to show it is taking action against against terrorist groups, closing religious schools and arresting dozens of people with links to terrorism, although observers have cast doubt on the effectiveness of Islamabad’s moves.
After an informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping last April, it seemed relations had improved. The leaders committed to strengthening communication between their two militaries to avoid disputes along their contested Himalayan border and coordinating more closely to help boost prosperity in the region.
Relations tense
The attack in Kashmir put pressure on China — a close ally of Pakistan — to alter its position at the United Nations Security Council, where the government in Beijing has blocked India’s attempts to list Azhar as a designated terrorist.
To India’s dismay, Pakistan has been one of the largest beneficiaries of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, which has seen about $60 billion committed for roads and power plants across the country, giving Beijing access to the Arabian Sea.
India did not name China in its official statement, saying the United Nations Security Council could not act on the proposal because a member placing the proposal on hold. The proposal was the council’s fourth attempt to blacklist Azhar and as a council member, China has veto powers.
A 43-year-old Australian man’s mobile phone was the only thing that stood between him and a pointy arrow during an attack in Australia Wednesday morning, according to police.
A confrontation occurred outside the man’s house in Nimbin, which is approximately 110 miles south of Brisbane. When he noticed a man, who was known to him, standing outside his house with a bow and arrow he took out his phone to videotape him, according to a statement from the New South Wales (NSW) Police Force.
The attacker allegedly shot an arrow at the man, which pierced the phone. The force of the arrow caused the phone to hit the man’s chin, according to the police statement.
He suffered only minor injuries that did not require medical treatment.
A 39-year-old man was taken to the Nimbin Police Station, where he was charged with armed with intent to commit an indictable offense, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious damage, according to the police statement.
The attacker was granted bail and is set to appear in court on Apr. 15.
Malaysian authorities have shut 111 schools as of Wednesday, after a suspected chemical leak in the southern state of Johor poisoned more than 200 children, teachers and other people.
Education Minister Maszlee Malik said in a Facebook post that the situation is “getting more critical,” according to Reuters.
The cause of the poisoning is thought to be fumes from toxic waste dumped into a river, Reuters says. The schools closed are located in the Pasir Gudang area, near Malaysia’s southern border with Singapore.
It has not been confirmed who is responsible for the chemicals causing the poisoning.
According to Reuters, 207 people had been treated for poisoning. As of Monday 44 people remained in hospital, with six of those people in intensive care. A majority of those in hospital are students.
(ROME) — Italy’s Justice Ministry has ordered a preliminary inquiry into an appeals court ruling that overturned a rape verdict in part by arguing that the woman who was attacked was too ugly to be a credible rape victim.
The ruling has sparked outrage in Italy, prompting a flash mob Monday outside the Ancona court, where protesters shouted “Shame!” and held up signs saying “indignation.”
The appeals sentence was handed down in 2017 — by an all-female panel — but the reasons behind it only emerged publicly when Italy’s high court annulled it on March 5 and ordered a retrial. The Court of Cassation said Wednesday its own reasons for ordering the retrial will be issued next month.
Two Peruvian men were initially convicted of the 2015 rape of a Peruvian woman in Ancona, but the Italian appeals court overturned the verdict and absolved them, finding that she was not a credible witness. In part of the ruling, the court noted that the suspects had found her unattractive and too “masculine” to be a credible rape victim.
Cinzia Molinaro, a lawyer for the victim, said her appeal to the Cassation contested a host of procedural problems with the acquittal verdict but said she had also cited the “absolute unacceptability” of the Italian court’s reference to the victim’s physical appearance.
The appeals sentence quoted one of the suspects as saying he found the woman unattractive and had her listed as “Viking” on his cellphone.
Molinaro noted that the woman, who has since returned to Peru, had suffered such genital trauma in the rape that she required stitches.
The Justice Ministry said it was conducting the “necessary preliminary investigations” into the appeals verdict. Molinaro said the ministry can send investigators to a court to check if there were any problems or omissions in the sentence, even when the case is still under appeal.
The case is the second to spark criticism in recent weeks in Italy, where cases of sexual violence and the murders of women regularly top the news.
Protests broke out earlier this month after an appeals court in Bologna nearly cut in half the sentence for a man who admitted to killing his partner. The court cited as one of its reasons for the reduction the “emotional storm” of jealousy that the killer experienced. Critics said the reduced sentence basically sanctioned the practice of “honor killings.”
(SHAH ALAM, Malaysia) — Malaysia’s attorney general ordered the murder case to proceed against a Vietnamese woman accused in the killing of the North Korean leader’s estranged half brother, prosecutors said in court Thursday.
Prosecutor Iskandar Ahmad gave no explanation for the refusal to drop the murder charge against Doan Thi Huong, who is the only suspect in custody after the stunning decision to drop the case Monday against Indonesian Siti Aisyah.
Huong’s lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told the court they were disappointed with the attorney general’s decision and said prosecutors were being unfair to Huong.
“It does not bring confidence to our criminal justice system. Very obviously, there is discrimination. The AG favored one party to the other,” Teh said.
He also sought a deferment of the trial, saying Huong has been unwell since Aisyah’s release and is not in a position to testify.
Huong stood in the dock and responded to the judge’s questions on the deferment request, saying she suffered from tension and stress. “I have no idea what is going on,” she said.
The judge agreed to postpone the trial until April 1 but warned there should be no more delay. The defense phase of the trial was to have begun Monday.
The two women were the only people in custody after four North Korean suspects fled the country the morning of Feb. 13, 2017, when Kim Jong Nam was poisoned with VX nerve agent. Aisyah and Huong have said they thought they were taking part in a prank for a TV show.
Huong looked tired and was sobbing as she spoke to Vietnamese Embassy officials after Thursday’s court hearing ended.
Vietnamese Ambassaador Le Quy Quynh said he was “very disappointed” with the attorney general’s decision. He said Vietnam’s justice minister had written to the Malaysian attorney general seeking Huong’s release and that Vietnam will keep lobbying Malaysia to free her.
“We will request Malaysia to have fair judgment and release her as soon as possible,” he said.
A High Court judge last August had found there was enough evidence to infer that Aisyah, Huong and the four missing North Koreans engaged in a “well-planned conspiracy” to kill Kim Jong Nam.
Lawyers for the women have previously said that they were pawns in a political assassination with clear links to the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and that the prosecution failed to show the women had any intention to kill. Intent to kill is crucial to a murder charge under Malaysian law.
Huong would face a death sentence if she is convicted of murder. Malaysia currently has a moratorium on executions but has backtracked on its announcement last year that it would abolish the death penalty. Instead the government said capital punishment would no longer be mandatory and courts would have discretion to impose the death penalty for 11 offenses. The changes require approval by Parliament before they take effect.
Malaysian officials have never officially accused North Korea and have made it clear they don’t want the trial politicized.
Kim Jong Nam was the eldest son in the current generation of North Korea’s ruling family. He had been living abroad for years but could have been seen as a threat to Kim Jong Un’s rule.
(NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand) — Thailand’s military-installed prime minister crooned a love song and boasted of his government’s achievements Wednesday during an official visit to his home province in the northeast ahead of the March 24 election.
Prayuth Chan-ocha led a 2014 coup ousting Thailand’s last elected government and is seeking this time to take power through more legitimate means.
He appeared before a crowd of thousands on a trip that was nominally part of his official duties. The style of the visit closely resembles what many people would consider campaigning, and he has been carrying out such activities for several months.
“We achieved so much in five years. If we can continue to pass another five years, we can achieve even more,” he told supporters in Nakhon Ratchasima province, 130 miles (210 kilometers) northeast of Bangkok, where he was born in an army camp in 1954. “It’s up to you whom you will choose to pick up this work.”
Supporters chanted “Stay on longer, Uncle Tu,” using his nickname. Prayuth greeted and took selfies with fans who came to welcome him, and he warmed to the hometown audience.
“I am stopping here, with you, because you are the best,” he sang laughingly to them, cribbing from a love song. The sentiments he held toward his home province extended to all Thailand’s 77 provinces, he told them, declaring his heart was “with you, you, you and you.”
Earlier Wednesday, he was greeted by a large crowd as he presided over the opening of a newly renovated train station in another northeastern province, Khon Kaen.
Prayuth initially disclaimed any political ambitions after the 2014 coup.
However, the Palang Pracharath Party nominated Prayuth as its candidate for prime minister and hopes it can form a government.
Critics say new election laws enacted by his military government give Prayuth an advantage in the polls and make it difficult for political parties not allied with the military to form a government.
Thai politics for more than a decade have been dominated by a battle for power between supporters and opponents of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted from office by a 2006 coup. The army and other conservative elements in Thai society, alarmed that Thaksin upended the traditional power structure by gaining unbeatable electoral majorities with populist policies, have sought to suppress his political machine.
Thaksin went into exile in 2010 to avoid serving a prison term on a conflict-of-interest conviction, but his sister Yingluck became prime minister in 2011, only to be forced from office just ahead of the 2014 coup.
(LONDON) — In a tentative first step toward ending months of political deadlock, British lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the country from leaving the European Union without a divorce agreement, triggering an attempt to delay that departure, currently due to take place on March 29.
Parliament is scheduled to decide Thursday whether to put the brakes on Brexit, a vote set up after lawmakers dealt yet another defeat to Prime Minister Theresa May amid a crisis over Britain’s departure from the EU.
The lawmakers’ 321-278 vote has political but not legal force, and does not entirely rule out a chaotic no-deal departure for Britain. But it might ease jitters spreading across the EU after lawmakers resoundingly rejected May’s divorce deal on Tuesday. Exiting the EU without a deal could mean major disruptions for businesses and people in the U.K. and the 27 remaining EU countries.
Speaking with a raspy voice after weeks of relentless pressure, May hinted that she plans to make a third attempt to get lawmakers to support her Brexit deal, which they have already rejected twice.
She said Parliament faced a “fundamental choice” — a “short, technical extension” if lawmakers approve a divorce deal with the EU in the next week, or a much longer delay to Brexit if they don’t.
The EU warned that voting against no-deal Brexit wasn’t enough to stop it. By law, Britain will leave the EU on March 29, with or without a deal, unless it cancels Brexit or secures a delay.
“There are only two ways to leave the EU: with or without a deal,” a European Commission official said. “The EU is prepared for both. To take no deal off the table, it is not enough to vote against no deal – you have to agree to a deal.”
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the unresolved situation.
Earlier, chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier warned that “the risk of a no-deal has never been higher.”
As Britain teeters ever closer to the edge of the Brexit cliff, lawmakers are trying to seize control from the divided and squabbling government, although it’s far from clear if they can agree on a way forward. There are competing factions that support May’s deal, a “softer” deal that would keep close ties with the EU, a no-deal Brexit, or even a new referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
Parliament likely will agree to delay Brexit, but it would need EU approval. The bloc — openly exasperated by Britain’s continuing Brexit crisis — warned that the U.K. would need to present a strong reason for any extension.
“I am against every extension — whether an extension of one day, one week, even 24 hours — if it’s not based on a clear opinion of the House of Commons for something,” said the European Parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt. “Please make up your minds in London, because this uncertainty cannot continue.”
The bloc is also reluctant to consider a delay that goes beyond elections to the European Parliament in late May, because it would mean Britain would have to participate in the polls even as it prepares to leave.
Both Britain and the EU have ramped up planning for a no-deal Brexit, which would rip up decades of rules for travel and trade between Britain and the bloc. Economists say it could cause huge upheaval, with customs checks causing gridlock at U.K. ports, new tariffs triggering sudden price increases and red tape for everyone from truckers to tourists.
The U.K. government announced its plans for the Irish border in the event of a no-deal Brexit, saying it wouldn’t impose new checks, duties or controls on goods coming from EU member Ireland into Northern Ireland. It also said it wouldn’t slap tariffs on 87 percent of goods coming into Britain from the EU — though there would be new levies on imports of some items including meat and cars.
The tariffs, intended to be temporary, wouldn’t apply to goods crossing from Ireland to Northern Ireland, raising fears the plan would spark a rise in smuggling.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said under the proposals, “Northern Ireland will become a backdoor to the European single market and I think that in a matter of months that will lead to the need for checks at Northern Ireland’s ports.”
“I don’t think the U.K.’s proposals will be workable for very long,” he said during a visit to Washington.
In Irish border communities and U.K. ports, no-deal anxiety was mounting.
“Potentially it is going to be a nightmare,” said Michael Eddy, a district councilor who lives in the aptly named town of Deal, a few miles from the major Channel port of Dover on England’s south coast.
He says local authorities have modeled potential disruptions and believe that even “a two-minute delay for every truck going through the port of Dover” would lead to a 50-mile (80-kilometer) traffic jam.
“What then happens with local people wanting to go about their business, wanting to get to hospitals, wanting to get their kids to school, all of that kind of stuff?” he said.
The European Parliament approved measures Wednesday to ameliorate the immediate hardships of a no-deal Brexit. It backed emergency plans to provide continuity for everything from air, port and road traffic to foreign students to the fishing industry.
The U.K. Parliament has twice rejected the withdrawal agreement that May spent two years negotiating with the EU, and the bloc insists there will be no more talks.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned British lawmakers that “whoever rejects the (Brexit) agreement plays with the welfare of their citizens and the economy in a reckless way.”
Yet May has not given up on a third attempt to get her deal through Parliament again.
U.K. Treasury chief Philip Hammond said he was “confident that we will do a deal” in the next few weeks.
Many Britons wish they could share his optimism.
“I think that a bit of unity would be helpful now,” said Katharine Beaugie, an artist in Dover. “It would be much better if we could have found some sort of decision.”
Neither of the Huseynov brothers got to see their mother before she died last year. Journalist Emin Huseynov had been stripped of his Azeri citizenship and rendered stateless after he escaped the oil-rich Central Asian country of Azerbaijan for Switzerland in 2015. His younger brother Mehman was serving a two-year prison term for allegedly defaming a police officer he said had tortured him.
Denied the chance to visit his mother in hospital, Mehman was only permitted a few hours leave to attend her funeral. In a graveside statement the journalist angered authorities anew when he criticized President Ilham Aliyev and said he would continue exposing the high-level corruption that affects some 10 million Azeris. “I wanted to show them that even in the most difficult part of my life you can’t break my will,” Mehman, 29, told TIME after his release in early March.
The murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi has drawn significant attention to how authoritarian regimes’ repress critical media. A case in point is what Reporters Without Borders (RSF) U.K. bureau director Rebecca Vincent calls a “perpetually worsening crackdown” in Azerbaijan. RSF says at least four journalists have been killed with impunity since 2005 in the former Soviet republic, which ranks 163 out of 180 countries on its 2018 press freedom index. The persecution of the Huseynov brothers, Vincent says, is characteristic of the “very personal” way Aliyev targets his critics.
On Dec. 26, a few months before Mehman’s scheduled release date, authorities bought new charges against him that his lawyer said could have extended his jail term up to seven years. In response, he went on hunger strike: he was “nil by mouth” for four days before accepting water and eventually liquid yoghurt. He broke his fast late January, when Azerbaijan’s prosecutor canceled the new charges in a rare concession to international pressure. Mehman had also inspired thousands of protesters to take the streets in what opposition figures called Azerbaijan’s largest demonstrations in more than a decade. (State police said 2,800 people attended the rally, while the opposition said there were 20,000.)
Emin Huseynov began his journalism career in 2001, two years before Ilham Aliyev took over as President, following on from his father Heydar, who had first ruled Azerbaijan as its Soviet boss, and then as the Republic’s president from 1994. In a cable released by Wikileaks, a former diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Azerbaijan compared father and son to members of The Godfather’s fictional Corleone family. In December, a British tribunal heard that in 2015, Ilham Aliyev’s daughters attempted to buy a $80 million London property that would have carried “a significant risk of money laundering.”
Persecution of dissident voices has long been a feature of the Aliyev regime. But historian Audrey L. Altstadt, who has written several books on Azerbaijan, says the repression worsened after 2010, when the ruling party gained absolute control of the legislature and passed laws that provided a pretext for “tax evasion” charges to be brought against organizations that received foreign grants. “That led to the freezing of institutional and then personal bank accounts of NGOs and media groups,” she says. “The ill-gotten wealth of the ruling family and oligarchs grew and criticism or truth-telling around it was deemed “criminal.””
Among those facing repercussions was Emin, founder of a free speech advocacy group called Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety (IRFS). A police beating in 2008 had left him with brain injuries, according to a case filed against Azerbaijan at the European Court of Human Rights, and when the government launched another crackdown on dissidents in 2014 he went into hiding, aided by his friend and fellow IRFS journalist Rasim Aliyev. Emin spent 10 months living in Baku’s Swiss Embassy before he flew out with a Swiss government delegation who were attending the opening ceremony of the first European Games.
Two months later, Rasim Aliyev died after being beaten in what authorities claimed was an altercation over soccer. “He was murdered and it’s clear to us the investigation was not free and fair,” Emin tells TIME from Geneva.
On March 2, the morning of his release, Mehman visited the cemetery where his mother is buried. He also recorded a tribute at the grave of Elmar Huseynov — an outspoken journalist critical of the Aliyev regime, who was gunned down in 2005. An icon of freedom of expression, Elmar had inspired both Emin and Mehman’s careers. “Even though it’s been 14 years since he was murdered, I tried to show to the government nothing will be forgotten,” he says.
Since his incarceration, Mehman has lost his mother, access to his office, and much of the equipment he needs to work. But some 700,000 now follow his accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube—with many others anonymously sharing content he creates. Speaking to TIME from a friend’s car near his apartment, which he believes is under surveillance, he says he will use his platform to draw attention to the plight of other jailed dissidents in Azerbaijan. He understands the risks, he says, but “I can’t imagine my life without this work.”
(HEJERE, Ethiopia) — Canada joined much of the world in barring the Boeing 737 Max 8 jet from its airspace on Wednesday, saying satellite tracking data shows possible but unproven similarities between the Ethiopian Airliner crash that killed 157 people and a previous crash involving the model five months ago. The decision left the U.S. as one of the few remaining countries to allow the planes to keep flying.
Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau said a comparison of vertical fluctuations found a “similar profile” to the Lion Air crash that killed 187 people in October.
Garneau emphasized that the data is not conclusive but crossed a threshold that prompted Canada to bar the Max 8. He said the new information indicated that the Ethiopian Airliner jet’s automatic system kicked in to force the nose of the aircraft down after computer software determined it was too high. He said that in the case of the Lion Air crash off Indonesia, the pilot fought against computer software that wanted to drop the nose of the plane.
“So if we look at the profile, there are vertical fluctuations, in the vertical profile of the aircraft and there were similarities in what we saw,” Garneau said. “But I would repeat once again. This is not the proof that is the same root problem. It could be something else.”
Canada lost 18 of its citizens in Sunday’s crash, the second highest number after Kenya. A Canadian family of six were among the dead.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Airlines said Wednesday that flight recorders from the jet that crashed will be sent abroad for analysis, but it was unclear where. Some aviation experts have warned that finding answers in the crash could take months.
Boeing has said it has no reason to pull the popular aircraft from the skies and does not intend to issue new recommendations about the aircraft to customers. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg spoke with President Donald Trump and reiterated that the 737 Max 8 is safe, the company said.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has backed the jet’s airworthiness and said it was reviewing all available data.
“Thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft,” acting FAA Administrator Daniel K. Elwell said in a statement.
The agency had no response to Canada’s decision, saying it doesn’t comment “on actions that other civil aviation organizations take.”
While aviation experts warn against drawing conclusions until more information emerges from the investigation, more than 40 countries — including the entire European Union — have suspended flights by the Max 8 or barred it from their airspace. China also ordered its airlines to ground the planes — they had 96 Max 8 jets in service, more than one-fourth of the approximately 370 Max jets in circulation.
The list of countries continued to grow Wednesday. Lebanon and Kosovo barred the Boeing 737 Max 8 from their airspace, and Norwegian Air Shuttles said it would seek compensation from Boeing after grounding its fleet. Egypt banned the operation of the aircraft. Thailand ordered budget airline Thai Lion Air to suspend flying the planes for risk assessments. Lion Air confirmed reports it has put on hold the scheduled delivery of four of the jets.
Ethiopian Airlines, widely seen as Africa’s best-managed airline, grounded its remaining four models.
And airline pilots on at least two U.S. flights have reported that an automated system seemed to cause their planes to tilt down suddenly.
Ethiopia was searching for another country to take the black box from Sunday’s plane crash for analysis.
Germout Freitag, a spokesman for Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, said that agency declined a request from Ethiopia to analyze the box because it lacked the software needed.
A spokesman for Ethiopian Airlines, Asrat Begashaw, said the airline has “a range of options” for the data and voice recorders of the flight’s last moments.
“What we can say is we don’t have the capability to probe it here in Ethiopia,” he said, adding that it would be sent to a European country that he did not identify. An airline official has said one of the recorders was partially damaged.
Boeing’s technical team joined U.S., Israeli, Kenyan and other aviation experts in the investigation led by Ethiopian authorities.
An Ethiopian pilot who saw the crash site minutes after the disaster told AP that the plane appeared to have “slid directly into the ground.”
Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said their pilots had received special training.
“In addition to the basic trainings given for 737 aircraft types, an additional training was given for the Max version,” Tewolde told state news reporters.
“After the Lion Air crash, questions were raised, so Boeing sent further instructions that it said pilots should know. Those relate to the specific behavior of this specific type of aircraft. As a result, training was given by Boeing, and our pilots have taken it and put it into our manuals,” he said.
Tewolde said he is confident the “investigation will reveal that the crash is not related to Ethiopian Airlines’ safety record.”
Forensic DNA work for identifications of the remains recovered so far has not yet begun, Asrat said. The dead came from 35 countries.
More devastated relatives of victims arrived at the crash site Wednesday, some supported by loved ones and wailing.
Others mourned in private. Dawit Gebremichael sat with a photograph of his only sister, Sara, a flight attendant on the plane. She left three children.
“It is customary for Ethiopians to have a body and a proper burial,” he told the AP. “But we don’t have the body here, and we don’t expect anything now.”
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