For starters, it would be a very, very bad day for mankind.
Sometimes it's best not to think about just how many nukes are out there.
Nuclear weapons are enormously destructive devices capable of level entire cities, and arguably ending human civilization in the case of an all-out nuclear exchange. But what if humankind, for some bizarre reason, decided to set all of them off at once? The YouTube channel Kurzgesagt followed this thought experiment to its apocalyptic conclusion, and it's not pretty.
The explosive yield of nuclear weapon is typically measured in kilotons, or thousand tons of TNT. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima is typically calculated at 16 kilotons, or 16,000 tons of TNT. The W-87 warhead carried by the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile has a yield of 300 kilotons. The B83 nuclear freefall bomb, carried by the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, has a yield of up to 1.2 megatons, or 1,200 kilotons.
Major-General Peter Dawe speaks to reporters at a Canadian Special Operations Forces Command change of command ceremony in Ottawa on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. The Canadian Forces is considering whether to start recruiting its elite special-forces soldiers straight off the street rather than forcing them to follow the traditional route of first spending several years in the military.THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick DoylePATRICK DOYLE / THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — The Canadian Forces are considering whether to recruit elite special-forces soldiers straight off the street rather than forcing them to follow the traditional route of first spending several years in the military.
The idea, which is still being debated, comes as Canada's special forces — and the military as a whole — look at radical new ways to attract and retain people with the skills and experience needed to fight tomorrow's wars.
That includes not just computer experts, for example, but also those with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and language skills, as the special forces aim to operate more effectively in different parts of the world.
"This is not about achieving set quotas or anything else," Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe, commander of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview.
President Barack Obama awards Sgt. Dakota Meyer the Medal of Honor Sept. 15, 2011. Meyer is the first living Marine recipient of the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Daniel Wetzel).
Receiving the Medal of Honor is the worst thing that ever happen to former Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer, he told the military podcast Zero Blog Thirty.
In September 2011, Meyer became the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. When his team was ambushed by more than 50 Taliban fighters, Meyer braved intense enemy fire to save 36 U.S. and Afghan troops.
Yet in an interview Thursday with the podcast, Meyer said he still blames himself for not being able to reach four Marines trapped by enemy fire sooner. It took him five attempts to fight through the ambush to reach the Marines, who were dead when he arrived.
Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, wrote 'China's Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay'. Photo: Winson Wong
* Political economy professor Minxin Pei says Beijing lacks the will to make radical political changes to deal with the trade war with the United States * Also says China's strong control of the economy will eventually backfire, with economy slowing to its lowest growth point for almost 30 years
China's inability to "take the opportunity to do the right thing" during the trade war with the United States could cost the country dearly in form of a recession that "will become the worst in recent Chinese history", according to a leading political economy scholar.
Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, believes China's strong control of the economy will eventually backfire.
"So far, it shows that China is not taking the opportunity to do the right thing," said Pei. "China is willing to make some concessions by buying more goods, perhaps also improve intellectual property protection, but that does not improve China's economy structurally.
#MissionShakti : Congratulations to the scientists of @isro & @DRDO_India on successful testing of Anti-Satellite Missile technology. India destroyed a live Low Earth Orbit satellite 300km away through #ASAT . IAF wishes greater success & glories in future. Jai Hind!!! pic.twitter.com/f53YHNrewH
Lingering space debris from the missile test poses a threat to astronauts on the International Space Station.
The head of NASA, administrator Jim Bridenstine, has called a recent Indian anti-satellite missile test, which destroyed a satellite in low Earth orbit and blasted 400 pieces of debris into space, a "terrible, terrible thing".
"That kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight," said Bridenstine, speaking at a livestreamed Town Hall gathering of NASA employees. "It's unacceptable and NASA needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is."
India announced that it had successfully carried out "Mission Shakti", an anti-satellite missile test on March 27, destroying one of the country's satellites. The success of the mission made India only the fourth nation to complete such a test, following previous tests conducted by the US, Russia and China.
— Kristina Wong πΊπΈ (@kristina_wong) April 2, 2019
The murder of estranged North Korean scion Kim Jong Nam was intricately planned and witnessed via security videos seen around the world, but it may never be really resolved. https://t.co/eclEW38s8q
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's insistence that there is little wrong with how he is handling the worst crisis of his tenure is frustrating lawmakers and senior party figures who believe the approach could cost him re-election this October.
Angry legislators are starting to push back against Trudeau and his team, opening up public divisions of the kind the ruling Liberals have not seen for almost 20 years.
Trudeau has been under pressure over allegations that officials inappropriately leaned on then-Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould last year to try to ensure SNC-Lavalin Group Inc avoid a corruption trial by paying a fine instead.
Wilson-Raybould resigned on Feb. 12 after being demoted within the Cabinet, and a second minister, Jane Philpott, subsequently quit over the way the matter had been handled.
The mood among senior advisers inside the prime minister's office has often been grim, according to two Liberals familiar with the matter.
WNU Editor: There are multiple reasons why Canadian Prime Minister is on track to lose in this year's federal election. The current focus is on his government's interference in a criminal case involving a company that has close ties to the governing Liberals, but he has bigger problems than that. He has lost the support of Western Canada who are furious with his energy policies that has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of well paying jobs in the energy sector. His tax policy on energy is also alienating voters in 4 key provinces who feel they are being targeted because their provincial governments have a different approach on how to combat climate change in view of their unique provincial economies. In Canada's largest province (i.e. Ontario), manufacturing jobs are leaving because of taxes and regulations that make it difficult to be competitive with the far more business friendly U.S., and there is also a cultural backlash among religious immigrants who do not feel comfortable with Prime Minister Trudeau's social agenda that includes support of abortion and LGBT issues. And in the province where I live .... French Quebec .... there is a serious backlash against Prime Minister Trudeau's open immigration policy among many in the French population who feel that their culture is being diminished. Bottom line .... his only hope for re-election right now is that his opponents screw it up, which they do have a history of doing. But if I was a betting man, I would definitely not be putting any money on his chances of being Prime Minister at the end of this year.
A demonstrator stands next to a burning barricade during a protest against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela March 31, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
* The oil giant published its accounts for the first time in a bid to attract investors * Aramco will sell bonds to raise $69 billion to buy out petrochemical giant SABIC * The figure dwarfs combined profits of Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and Total
Oil giant Saudi Aramco has revealed it made the world's biggest corporate profit last year, opening its secretive accounts for the first time as it prepares to raise funds from investors.
International ratings agencies Fitch and Moody's got rare access to Aramco's accounts which show net profits reached $111 billion (£84.6 billion) last year.
It comes as Aramco prepares to sell bonds on the international market to help finance the purchase of a 70-percent stake in Saudi petrochemical behemoth SABIC for $69.1 billion (£52.7), effectively merging the kingdom's two largest companies.
* Huawei's new Track AI product for diagnosing eye conditions was built with Google's TensorFlow software * A creative team that works with Google's advertising clients also provided marketing help to Huawei
When Huawei Technologies announced its latest smartphone last week, the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker also shared another product. Track AI promises to pair software with Huawei devices to let "non-trained professionals" diagnose eye conditions.
Missing from the Chinese company's announcement was Google's work behind the scenes.
Huawei built Track AI using TensorFlow, a set of artificial intelligence software tools from Alphabet's Google. TensorFlow is also open-source, so anyone, anywhere can use it and Google cannot control access.
The Pentagon has halted the delivery of equipment related to the F-35 jet to Turkey due to Turkey's decision to purchase the Russian-made S-400 missile system.
"Pending an unequivocal Turkish decision to forgo delivery of the S-400, deliveries and activities associated with the stand-up of Turkey's F-35 operational capability have been suspended while our dialogue on this important matter continues with Turkey," Lt. Col. Mike Andrews told CNN in a statement.
"We very much regret the current situation facing our F-35 partnership, but the DoD is taking prudent steps to protect the shared investments made in our critical technology," he added.
The news of the delivery suspension was first reported by Reuters.
IN THE NEWSA UAE-backed spying mission targeted the host of an Al Jazeera program called "The Opposite Direction," which gave voice to pressing issues of the day. Here, the company's Doha headquarters.Photo by Reuters/Naseem Zeitoon
A group of American hackers who once worked for U.S. intelligence agencies helped the United Arab Emirates spy on a BBC host, the chairman of Al Jazeera and other prominent Arab media figures during a tense 2017 confrontation pitting the UAE and its allies against the Gulf state of Qatar.
The American operatives worked for Project Raven, a secret Emirati intelligence program that spied on dissidents, militants and political opponents of the UAE monarchy. A Reuters investigation in January revealed Project Raven's existence and inner workings, including the fact that it surveilled a British activist and several unnamed U.S. journalists.
The Saudi Government is "intent on harming" Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos and accessed his phone in order to gain private information, his security chief claims.
Gavin De Becker, a longtime security consultant, said he had concluded his investigation into the January publication of leaked text messages between Mr Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, a former television anchor whom the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper said he was dating.
The outlet threatened to publish the messages on the same day Mr Bezos and his wife announced that they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage.
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appears to have lost control of city hall in Ankara and is neck and neck with the opposition in Istanbul, according to preliminary results from Sunday's municipal elections. In the capital, Mansur Yavas, candidate of an alliance led by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), has taken the lead. Meanwhile in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city and its commercial hub, opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu reportedly leads former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, according to the latest data provided by Turkey's official Supreme Election Board.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain was no nearer to resolving the chaos surrounding its departure from the European Union after parliament failed on Monday to find a majority of its own for any alternative to Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal.
After a tumultuous week in which May's divorce strategy was rejected by lawmakers for a third time, despite her offer to quit if it passed, the future direction of Brexit remains mired in confusion.
In a bid to break the impasse, lawmakers on Monday voted on four last-minute alternative Brexit options for what is the United Kingdom's most far-reaching policy change since World War Two. All were defeated.
For most people, the pain of mass illegal immigration has been abstract.
That's about to change.
Anyone crossing the U.S.-Mexico border could end up stuck in longer lines as officers are pulled from the land ports of entry and deployed to help the Border Patrol transport, feed and see to the medical needs of the tens of thousands of people streaming illegally into the U.S. each week.
Mexican officials warn of another caravan of 20,000 migrants preparing to shoot north, hoping to take advantage of the lax enforcement in both Mexico and lenient policies in the U.S. About 100,000 immigrants responding to those incentives have been nabbed at the border in March alone.
"The result is an illegal immigration superhighway that's flowing through Mexico," one senior Homeland Security Department official told The Washington Times.
By now, the nature of the border problem is clear: Families and children, assisted by drug smuggling cartels, have figured out how to exploit loopholes in federal law to gain a foothold in the U.S. They are coming in larger numbers and poorer health, and Homeland Security says it has reached the breaking point.
* Western ISIS recruits kept far apart from each other because they knew some were targets for drone strike assassinations. * "A lot of the westerners were kept distances from one another because one of the primary affairs was targeted drone strikes," British recruit Hamza Parvez told the BBC from prison in Syria. * "People wouldn't want to be associated with one another just in case. So we'd really be scared of, ok, "this guy might be," and "this guy might be"." * The physical defeat of ISIS forces in Syria was declared on March 23 and a number of captured western recruits have spoken to media since about the caliphate's final days.
ISIS terrorists recruited from western countries like the US and UK always kept their distance from each other because of the threat of drone strikes, according to a captured member of the terror group.
"A lot of the westerners were kept distances from one another because one of the primary affairs was targeted drone strikes," captured ISIS member and ex-police cadet from London, Hamza Parvez, told the BBC from a Kurdish prison in Syria.
Parvez left the UK to join ISIS in 2014 but was captured in Baghuz, the final ISIS bastion in Syria, according to the BBC. The government has stripped him of citizenship.
WNU Editor: Their claims that they did not know how bad ISIS was/is does not wash with me. They knew who ISIS was, and they joined because they wanted to.
More News On Former British ISIS Fighters Speaking Out
Images also reveal work on EMP and electronic warfare weaponry.
Commercial satellite images have provided the first photographs of a secret Chinese anti-satellite laser base in western Xinjiang province, along with other high-technology weapons facilities.
The laser facility is located near a lake and is about 145 miles south of the Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
The facility was discovered by retired Indian Army Col. Vinayak Bhat, a satellite imagery analyst who specializes on China.
China is using its satellite tracking stations located throughout the country as a means of identifying and targeting satellites.
WNU Editor: Land based anti-satellite laser systems have not lived-up to the hype that they are able to knock out low-orbit satellites. Then again .... maybe the Chinese have discovered something that will make it work?
* The Philippines has officially protested the presence of hundreds of Chinese ships around a island in the South China Sea. * The vessels have been detected around Philippines-occupied Thitu Island, aka Pag-asa, since January. * The Philippines considers the vessels to be maritime militia, though China says they're fishing boats.
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines has filed a diplomatic protest over the presence of more than 200 Chinese boats near an island occupied by Manila in the disputed South China Sea, the president's spokesman said on Monday.
President Rodrigo Duterte has pursued warmer ties with China since taking office in 2016 in exchange for billions of dollars of pledged loans and investment.
The Department of Foreign Affairs protested against the vessels near the Philippines-occupied Thitu island, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo told a regular news conference, without describing the boats.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (C), attends military ceremony in front of Carondelet Palace in Quito, Ecuador, November 18, 2016. REUTERS/Guillermo Granja
* In a recently released 2013 speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned that developed countries in the West have long-term advantages over China. * Xi acknowledged that China's Communist Party had made mistakes but said the party's history is "generally speaking glorious."
BEIJING (Reuters) - Developed Western nations have long-term economic, technological and military advantages over China, and the Communist Party has to realize that some people will use the West's strong points to criticize socialism's failings, President Xi Jinping said.
Since assuming power in China more than six years ago, Xi has ramped up efforts to ensure total party loyalty and discipline, including a sweeping crackdown on corruption, warning the party's very survival is at stake.
This year, which is marked by a series of sensitive anniversaries including three decades since the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square, has seen a further increase in calls for party loyalty.
WNU Editor: He is right that the West has long-term economic and military superiority. But he is wrong if he thinks socialism will be China's salvation.
The men who ripped Carlos Guillen's toenails out and tightened a plastic bag over his face at counterintelligence headquarters in Caracas were Venezuelan. But the officers overseeing his torture were Cuban.
What immediately gave them away was how they spoke Spanish, said Guillen, a former lieutenant in the Venezuelan military who was accused of treason and, after being placed under house arrest and escaping, fled to Colombia.
Accents were a tip-off, too, for Maria Martinez Guzman. She was on the Univision team that scored an interview in February with embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and she said she was amazed by what she witnessed: Cubans in suits and earpieces telling Maduro aides, wearing jeans, what to do. The president was so angered by the journalists' questions that he ordered the crew briefly detained and then thrown out of the country.
WNU Editor: The involvement of Cuba's military and intelligence services in Venezuela have been known for a long time .... Wall Street Journal: A Dozen High Level Cuban Military Officers And Thousands Of Intelligence Agents Are Now In Venezuela (May 22, 2017). My one contact in Caracas told me at the beginning of the year that most of the men who were surrounding and protecting the area around the Presidential compound in Caracas are Cuban, as well as a few very "white looking" men that he assumed were Russian.
Acting President Nicolas Maduro's government ordered schools to remain closed and to reduce daily working hours. The country's chronic electricity and water shortages have fueled protests nationwide.
Venezuela's acting president President Nicolas Maduro announced on Sunday announced the beginning of a 30-day electricity rationing plan.
The acting president said the rationing regime would balance generation and transmission with consumption, and had the aim of ensuring water supply. Maduro did not elaborate on how the rationing program would be carried out.
Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez also announced on Sunday that school activities would remain suspended and business hours would be reduced to end the workday at 2 p.m.
KIEV (Reuters) - A comedian with no political experience took a commanding lead in the first round of Ukraine's presidential election, offering a fresh face to voters fed up with corruption in a country on the front line of the West's standoff with Russia.
With three quarters of votes counted on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a 41-year-old comic who plays a fictional president in a popular TV series, had won more than 30.5 percent.
It leaves President Petro Poroshenko in a distant second with just 16.6 percent of the vote, a hole that may be too deep to climb out from. He faced a public furious at his failure to stamp out corruption or improve living standards five years after a pro-Russian leader was swept out by a popular revolt.
* Erdogan's AKP party lost the key mayoral seat of Ankara after the local elections * Despite losses in several Turkish cities Erdogan declared victory on Sunday * The AKP also looks set to lose Istanbul to the Republican People's Party (CHP)
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lost the mayoral race in the capital Ankara to Turkey's secular opposition as the country staged pivotal local elections.
Erdogan declared victory in the elections on Sunday night but the opposition's success in Ankara and elsewhere dealt a significant blow to his party's dominance.
Votes are still being counted in Istanbul where the race for mayor is said to be 'too close to call'.
The candidate of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in Turkey's largest city Istanbul is ahead in the vote count against the candidate of President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party (AKP), the head of the country's High Election Board said on Monday.
Within the next 15 years, the Navy plans to add as many as 30 DDG 51 Destroyers
The Navy's ambitious fleet-size expansion relies upon a massive increase in heavily armed Destroyers able to launch long-range attacks, fire interceptor missiles, defend carrier strike groups and engage in massive open blue water warfare.
Within the next 15 years, the Navy plans to add as many as 30 DDG 51 Destroyers, including 22 new, high-tech DDG 51 Flight III warships and eight state-of-the-art DDG 51 Flight IIA destroyers. Prioritizing such a large number of these warships offers an interesting analytical window into Navy thinking about the next five decades of ocean war.
In addition to adding 30 new destroyers, the Navy' also seeks 15 LCS', 18 of the new Frigates and as many as 32 new attack submarines in the next 15 years. While many new ships are now under construction, the current number of Navy ships is roughly in the high 280s, a number the Navy hopes to grow to 355 by 2034.
JEAN-Claude Juncker faces a lukewarm reception from Italy's Giuseppe Conte after the European Commission President hit out at the nation's poor economic figures.
SPAIN and Italy are in economic turmoil with the former recording an increase of public debt by up 97.2% of GDP in 2018 and the latter hit rising unemployment levels last month.
AN ARCHAEOLOGIST made a chilling discovery when he dug into the basement of an old house near Mexico City's Templo Mayor ruin site, a documentary revealed.
JOHNSON & Johnson's baby shampoo has failed an Indian watchdog's quality tests, just a few months after Indian authorities launched an investigation into the company's baby powder to see if it contained cancer-causing asbestos.
MALAYSIA AIRLINES flight MH370 co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid "made contact" with a plane flying 30 minutes ahead of the doomed jet, according to the pilot, a documentary revealed.
UKRAINE is still battling to reclaim two of its occupied territories from Russia, amid a comedy actor thrashing the incumbent president in the first round of the country's presidential elections.
Singaporean lawmakers introduced legislation Monday to combat fake news through holding social media sites responsible for content the government deems false. But like other countries’ attempts to regulate the scourge of disinformation spread online, the bill has prompted free speech concerns, especially within the context of the Singapore’s highly controlled media environment.
The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill aims to “prevent the communication of false statements of fact” and “enable measures to be taken to counteract the effects of such communication,” according to the draft.
Under the new legislation, the government can demand that online platforms take down misinformation or publish “corrections” next to information flagged as false.
Parties failing to comply can face fines of up to $1 million Singapore dollars (approximately $740,000) and 10 years in prison.
The bill comes just days after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called for global regulators to establish worldwide standards for online content.
Internet giants Facebook and Google did not welcome Singapore’s proposal, however.
Simon Milner, Facebook’s Asia-Pacific Vice President of Public Policy, voiced concern that the law would “grant broad powers to the Singapore executive branch” and “proactively push a government notification to users,” according to Reuters.
The anti-fake news bill has also elicited criticism from industry associations and rights groups, which say the legislation gives the country’s leaders the power to promote an agenda while stifling public expression.
Jeff Paine, the managing director of the Asia Internet Coalition, called the measure “the most far-reaching legislation of its kind to date” and said it “gives the Singapore government full discretion over what is considered true or false.”
“This level of overreach poses significant risks to freedom of expression and speech, and could have severe ramifications both in Singapore and around the world,” he added.
Singapore is currently ranked 151 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Border’s World Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders, below media-unfriendly nations Myanmar and Russia.
But Singapore Law Minister K. Shanmugam disputed the criticism, according to Reuters. “This legislation deals with false statements of facts. It doesn’t deal with opinions, it doesn’t deal with viewpoints. You can have whatever viewpoints however reasonable or unreasonable,” he said.
Last year, neighboring Malaysia approved a similar law that was also faulted for repressing public expression ahead of elections. France and Germany have also adopted legislation to fight fake news and hate speech, while Australia is set to propose a bill this week to regulate social media in the wake of the live-streamed New Zealand massacre.
(WELLINGTON, New Zealand) — New Zealand lawmakers on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of new gun restrictions during the first stage of a bill they hope to rush into law by the end of next week.
The bill would ban the types of weapons a gunman used to kill 50 people at two mosques last month.
The bill was backed by both liberals and conservatives, with only a single lawmaker from the 120 that sit in Parliament voting against it. The vote was the first of three that lawmakers must pass before the bill becomes law.
Police Minister Stuart Nash said far too many people have access to dangerous guns and lawmakers were driven by the need to ensure public safety.
“We are also driven by the memory of 50 men, women and children who were taken from their loved ones on the 15th of March,” Nash said. “Their memory is our responsibility. We don’t ever want to see an attack like this in our country again. We are compelled to act quickly.”
Seemingly drawing a distinction with the U.S., where gun possession is constitutionally protected, Nash said that in New Zealand, gun ownership remains a privilege and not a right.
Conservative lawmaker David Seymour voted against the bill, saying it was too rushed.
“Doing it in nine days before politicians go on their Easter break is starting to look more like political theater than public safety,” he said.
But Seymour was so busy explaining to reporters his reasons for opposing the bill that he missed a procedural vote in which he could have tried to slow its passage.
Many New Zealanders were shocked at the firepower the gunman was able to legally obtain and favor the legislative changes.
Some are opposed. More than 14,000 have signed a petition filed in Parliament which says the law changes are “unjust” for law-abiding citizens and are being driven by emotions.
The bill would ban “military-style” semi-automatic guns and high-capacity magazines. It would also ban semi-automatic shotguns that could be fitted with detachable magazines and pump-action shotguns that can hold more than five rounds.
The bill wouldn’t ban guns often used by farmers and hunters, including semi-automatic .22-caliber or smaller guns that hold up to 10 rounds, or shotguns that hold up to five rounds.
Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak disputed a hefty new tax bill shortly before the start of his first trial related to 1MDB corruption charges.
In a Facebook post Monday night, Najib said he never shirked his responsibility to pay personal taxes every year. It came in response to a report in the Edge, citing unidentified sources, that Inland Revenue Board issued him an extra tax bill of around 1.5 billion ringgit ($368 million) for 2011 to 2017.
Najib dismissed the penalty as “propaganda” and said it can be challenged according to the law. He also questioned who leaked the information.
“This doesn’t mean I did not pay taxes every year or have overdue taxes,” Najib wrote. The revenue board didn’t respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.
Najib on Wednesday is set to face seven of the 42 counts of corruption and embezzlement over his role in state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Mexico’s top cop, who’s pledged to weed out criminals in migrant caravans, has his own history of working illegally in the U.S.
On two occasions Public Security Minister Alfonso Durazo crossed into the U.S. to wash dishes and cars without documentation, he told a group of business leaders, Mexico’s La Jornada newspaper reported. Durazo’s press office confirmed the statements.
Durazo’s past isn’t unusual. But the fact that the very person in charge of patrolling caravans in Mexico worked undocumented shows how pervasive such migration has been in recent decades. It may be one of the starkest reality checks for U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that caravans be stopped altogether or he’ll close the border and stop aid.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has pledged to fight illegal immigration by aiding Central American nations in improving conditions in their countries, and he’s offered to help migrants find jobs in Mexico. He’s declined to respond to Trump’s threats. His interior minister, Olga Sanchez, warned last week she has information about the creation of a new migrant caravan of more than 20,000 people from Honduras, Mexican newspaper El Universal reported.
Durazo pledged at the event in Sonora that he wouldn’t allow people with criminal records to remain in the caravans, according to La Jornada. Afterward he told reporters that several law enforcement agencies will be monitoring caravan members.
“There will be intelligence work shared by several agencies and anyone who isn’t participating in the caravan in an orderly way, who isn’t registered, we’ll help them go to the National Immigration Institute to regulate their stay in the country,” Durazo said, according to a recording of his statement sent by his press office.
(LONDON) — British lawmakers have failed to find a majority for any proposal in votes on alternatives to the government’s rejected Brexit deal.
Lawmakers rejected four options in votes in the House of Commons.
The votes were an attempt to forge an alternative to the government’s rejected European Union divorce deal.
The options included remaining in a customs union with the EU — which failed by just three votes — and holding a new referendum on Britain’s membership in the bloc.
The government is still trying to build support for Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, which has been rejected three times by Parliament.
Britain is due to leave the EU on April 12 without an agreement unless it passes a divorce deal or secures an extension from the bloc.
There was an unfortunate series of events on Blue Planet Live over the weekend when a reporter was helping to save some baby sea turtles, only to have one eaten by a seagull on live television.
BBC presenter Liz Bonnin was drawing needed attention to the plight of endangered sea turtles by taking part in sea turtle release on Heron Island, Australia, as part of Sunday night’s episode. Bonnin and wildlife worker Janine Ferguson released six baby green turtles, so they could crawl across the sand to the sea. As the tiny turtles struggled, Bonnin spoke of how important it is to protect the “precious individuals” from predators in the hopes that they make it to the ocean to help rebuild the declining sea turtle populations. As she discussed the risk of predation, a seagull swooped in to prove her point. It appeared behind her and snatched one of the hatchlings, much to the horror of viewers watching at home, who took to Twitter to express their dismay:
BBC Blue Planet Live @lizbonnin just released some baby sea turtles in broad daylight for the cameras, and a seagull just gobbled one up straight away. What a bunch of amateurs.
The BBC provided the following statement about the regrettable, if natural, event:
“We’ve been working with scientists from the Heron Island Research Station to explore their lives, from hatching to returning to the beaches to nest. Green sea turtle populations, like sea turtles across the world, are in trouble so the work being done here is crucial to the future survival of the species. As part of their ongoing studies, researchers on Heron Island check nests for any hatchlings left behind, 48 hours after the others naturally emerge. Those turtles still alive are carried out at either dawn or dusk for release, as we saw last night on #BluePlanetLive.”
“They can’t be released directly into the ocean as the turtles need to “imprint” the beach by walking across the sand to the water. In this case, as with the turtles that emerge naturally, some opportunistic predation occurs by other species either looking to feed themselves or their own young. If this happens we are unable to intervene and have to let nature take its course. The survival rates of turtles are extremely low, as explained in the first episode of Blue Planet Live last Sunday, with only roughly 1 in 1000 turtles making it to adulthood. Making it safely into the depths of the ocean is a tough, but crucial, first test for these captivating creatures if those that survive to adulthood are going to return to breed on these beaches.”
David Godfrey, Executive Director of the nonprofit Sea Turtle Conservancy, thinks the “unfortunate event” highlights a larger issue involving sea turtles and people who want to help them. Resorts and tourist organizations have been “allowing tourists to release turtles for a fee or a photo op,” but do so in a way that Godfrey believes can harm the very critters they are hoping to save. “When hatchlings emerge naturally from a nest they almost always do that at night for a reason-they are less visible to predators,“ he said in an interview with TIME. Unfortunately, many of these tourist events happen in the daytime, when the turtles are vulnerable, so tourists can take photos of their good deed. “The fact that these hatchlings were released in the day is where the mistake was made,” Godfrey said. “If the bird hadn’t gotten the hatchling, then a predatory fish waiting just offshore would have.”
That said, Godfrey hopes the fact that this story is going viral will “get the message out about these amazing animals” and encourage viewers to “feel compassion for their survival.”
“We should be thinking of whether these staged hatchling releases should be happening at all and if they should happen during the night,” Godfrey said. “If you’re a tourist traveling to these places, you should not participate in [sea turtles] releases happening during the day.”
(LONDON) — A dozen demonstrators have been arrested after stripping off in Britain’s House of Commons to protest climate change.
The protesters stripped down to their underpants in the public gallery Monday while lawmakers were debating Brexit. Some had slogans including “SOS” and “stop wasting time” written on their bodies.
The group Extinction Rebellion said the protest was an attempt “to draw politicians’ attention to the climate and ecological crisis.”
Police officers removed the protesters, some of whom had glued their hands to a glass barrier. Police said they were arrested on suspicion of “outraging public decency.”
Lawmakers continued debating Brexit, with some making reference to the disruption. Conservative legislator Nick Boles said “it has long been a thoroughly British trait to be able to ignore pointless nakedness.”
(MILAN) — An 8-meter (26-foot) sperm whale was found dead off Sardinia with 22 kilograms (48.5 pounds) of plastic in its belly, prompting the World Wildlife Foundation to sound an alarm Monday over the dangers of plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea.
The environmental group said the garbage recovered from the sperm whale’s stomach included a corrugated tube for electrical works, plastic plates, shopping bags, tangled fishing lines and a washing detergent package with its bar code still legible.
The female whale beached off the northern coast of Sardinia last week, within the vast Pelagos marine sanctuary that was created as a haven for dolphins, whales and other sea life.
“It is the first time we have been confronted with an animal with such a huge quantity of garbage,” Cinzia Centelegghe, a biologist with the University of Padova, told the Turin daily La Stampa.
The exam also determined that the whale was carrying a fetus that had died and was in an advance state of decomposition. Experts said the mother whale had been unable to digest calamari due to the huge amount of plastic it had ingested, filling two-thirds of its stomach.
WWF said plastic is one of the greatest threats to marine life and has killed at least five other whales that had ingested large amounts of it over the last two years from Europe to Asia.
Another sperm whale died off the Italian island of Ischia, near Naples, last December with plastic bags and a thick nylon thread in its stomach, but plastic was not the cause of death.
The World Wildlife Foundation said between 150,000 and 500,000 tons of plastic objects and 70,000 to 130,000 tons of micro-plastics wind up in Europe’s seas each year.
To combat the phenomenon, the European Parliament last week approved a new law banning a wide range of single-use plastic products, including plates and straws, starting in 2021.
Italy’s environment minister, Sergio Costa, lamented the whale’s death and said he planned to propose a new law this week to limit the use of plastics.
The law will permit fishermen to bring plastics recovered at sea to land for proper disposal, which they currently are barred from doing. Costa also pledged Italy would be one of the first countries to enact the European single-use plastics ban and appealed to the mayors of Italian cities and coastal towns to adopt the ordinances in advance of the 2021 law.
“We have been using disposable plastics in a carefree way in these years, and now we are paying the price,” he said. “The war on disposable plastics has started. And we won’t stop here.”
On Friday, President Donald Trump announced he was cutting aid to the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
On Sunday morning, Fox News reported the policy update in a conversation on popular show Fox & Friends, underlined by a banner graphic that read “Trump cuts U.S. aid to 3 Mexican countries.” Of course for the news station, Mexico is one country, not three, and is not affected by Trump’s change. Naturally, the internet had a field day lambasting the channel for their incorrect chyron headline.
A few hours later, the show’s co-host Ed Henry followed up the snafu with an on-air apology. “We had an inaccurate graphic onscreen while taking about this very story. We just want to be clear, the funding is being cut off to the three Central American countries. We apologize for the error — it never should’ve happened,” he said.
For some, however, the correction was already too little too late. “Just a reminder that these are the same folks who assert their superiority by belittling the intelligence and good faith of others,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted with a screenshot of the inaccurate headline.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of Indiana, who is in the running to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020, had another take: “Amazingly, the chyron is not the most foolish thing about this picture,” he said. “To get ahead of a potential refugee crisis caused by great suffering in Central America, it would make sense to use our resources to help reduce that suffering.”
Trump’s policy change stems from his belief that the three Central American countries are contributing to what he calls a “migrant caravan.” “If we’re going to give these countries hundreds of millions of dollars, we would like them to do more,” his current White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told CNN. The people of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have been dealing with protracted humanitarian and political crises, including organized crime, agricultural challenges and restrictive government policies, for years.
Amazingly, the chyron is not the most foolish thing about this picture.
To get ahead of a potential refugee crisis caused by great suffering in Central America, it would make sense to use our resources to help reduce that suffering.
Despite having almost no political experience, the 45-year old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner won 58.4 percent of the vote in the second-round vote, defeating the European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic. The political newcomer soared to popularity in just a few months with a campaign that focused on a struggle for justice.
The president is mostly a ceremonial role in the country of 5.4 million, as Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini is responsible for overseeing the government. But when Caputova takes office in June, she will have important blocking powers, will be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and will have power to appoint top judges.
Where does Caputova come from?
Caputova was born to a working-class family in the town of Pezinok in what was then western Czechoslovakia. The divorced mother of two daughters rose to prominence and was nicknamed the “Erin Brokovich” of Slovakia after leading a successful case against a toxic landfill that was planned in her hometown in 2016. Her 14-year-long case against the wealthy land developer involved organizing protests, filing lawsuits and writing petitions to the European Union. The campaign earned her a prestigious Goldman Environmental prize in 2016.
She recently became vice-chair of Progressive Slovakia, a party so new that it has not yet run in the parliamentary elections.
How did she win the election?
Caputova built her campaign on a vow to fight corruption, by stripping the police and prosecutors of their political powers. Last year’s murder of the investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova has put the issue of political corruption at the forefront of public discussion. And Caputova said Kuciak’s murder was the reason she decided to run for president.
Kuciak, who had worked to expose corruption among the political elite was shot and killed in February 2018. Three people were charged with the murder, including a millionaire with alleged links to the center-left political party, Smer. Kuciak’s death sparked anti-government protests attracting tens of thousands of people, which eventually forced Prime Minister and Smer leader Rober Smico to step down. The party is still the largest in the national parliament, however, and Pellegrini is its prime minister.
Caputova’s liberal values also appealed to younger voters in a country where same-sex marriage is not yet legal. Caputova is in favour of same-sex unions and has said that LGBT adoption is better than leaving children in orphanages. On the question of abortion, she said she believes it is a woman’s right to make that decision.
What about her appealed to Slovakian voters?
Her approach to politics, judging by the responses of Slovakians TIME spoke to. “She seemed like someone Slovakia needed – kind, honest and never criticized her opponents,” said Antonia Halko, a 28-year-old wholesale manager from the town of Bardejov in Slovakia who voted for Caputova.
“I saw her talk in person at an event on January 30th and I knew immediately I was going to vote for her. She was very authentic, humane and I simply trusted what she was saying – which is a pretty rare feature in the Slovak politics,” said Juraj Scott, a charity-worker from Slovakia’s capital city, Bratislava.
Corruption among officials was also a core concern. “We all started to realize that we needed to stand up to the corrupt government because our country wasn’t safe. Caputova promised that nothing like this would ever happen again,” Halko said.
What does her victory mean for European politics?
Caputova’s election is a rare progressive victory in central Europe where nationalist rhetoric has grown over the past few years. In neighboring Hungary, Poland and Austria, governments are dominated by right-wing, nationalist parties. In these countries and elsewhere, liberal parties have struggled to counter populist leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban whose campaigns focus on migration and social issues.
But Slovakia’s election provides evidence that dissatisfaction with the status quo can usher in more progressive leaders. “I am happy not just for the result, but mainly that it is possible not to succumb to populism, to tell the truth, to raise interest without aggressive vocabulary,” Caputova told a crowd of supporters in Bratislava.
Caputova’s victory, which came on a low turnout of 40 percent, is likely to be only the beginning of the fight for the progressive left in Slovakia. The European Parliament’s elections in May and the parliamentary elections next year will be the real test of the movement’s strength.
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