The B-1 bomber fleet remains grounded three weeks after inspectors identified issues with a Lancer's drogue chute system, but @AFGlobalStrike boss Gen. Timothy Ray approved a recovery plan on Tuesday. Read more at https://t.co/aSLtAOCuOS. pic.twitter.com/SrOXmLEchI
Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, Prime Minister of the Republic of Mali (L) speaks to media next to Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Protesters demanded action after massacre of almost 160 Fulani herders by an ethnic vigilante group four weeks ago.
Mali's prime minister and his government has resigned four weeks after a massacre of almost 160 Fulani herders by an ethnic vigilante group shocked the nation.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita accepted the resignation on Thursday without giving a reason for the departure of Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga.
"A prime minister will be named very soon and a new government will be put in place after consultations with all political forces" from both the ruling and opposition sides, the statement from Keita's office said.
The two-pronged conspiracy theory that has dominated U.S. political discourse for almost three years – that (1) Trump, his family and his campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, and (2) Trump is beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin — was not merely rejected today by the final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It was obliterated: in an undeniable and definitive manner.
The key fact is this: Mueller – contrary to weeks of false media claims – did not merely issue a narrow, cramped, legalistic finding that there was insufficient evidence to indict Trump associates for conspiring with Russia and then proving their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That would have been devastating enough to those who spent the last two years or more misleading people to believe that conspiracy convictions of Trump's closest aides and family members were inevitable. But his mandate was much broader than that: to state what did or did not happen.
WASHINGTON – Democrats reacted with alarm to fresh details in Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, vowing to hold hearings and look further into whether President Donald Trump improperly tried to impede the special counsel's investigation.
Intelligence Committee member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Ct., said the section of the report focused on obstruction of justice "reads like The Godfather."
"The array of sleazy behavior, of lies, and ordering subordinates to do potentially illegal things is really pretty grim," he told USA TODAY.
"Once you start reading the report, it's very clear that Mueller is jumping up and down and saying 'Congress do what I can't do,'" Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., another member of the Intelligence Committee, told USA TODAY.
* Attorney General William Barr published a redacted version of the 448-page report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday * It is divided into two volumes: 207 pages on collusion, and 241 on obstruction * The report crucially says that the special counsel did not clear President Trump * It paints a picture of an angry Trump who went outside official channels, voicing rage at the Russia investigation from the beginning of his presidency * When Mueller was appointed, he ranted: 'I'm f***ed. This is the end of my presidency' * Barr used a press conference to announce the findings of the report before it had been seen by Congress or the public * Mueller's report cites Justice Department guidelines prohibiting prosecution of a sitting precedent * He said the weight of evidence in the Mueller report shows Trump did not obstruct justice and that the president was 'understandably frustrated' * A triumphant Trump tweeted a Game of Thrones meme saying 'Game Over' * Speaking at the White House, the president said: 'I'm having a good day' * Mueller assembled the document over a two-year investigation * His team conducted 500 interviews, though Trump would only submit to an interview in writing while consulting with lawyers * Mueller obtained eight convictions so far, including of Trump's campaign chair Paul Manafort on corruption charges
Robert Mueller's redacted special counsel report into Donald Trump and Russian election interference was finally published Thursday saying Congress could find Trump guilty of obstructing justice – an hour after attorney general Bill Barr said he had cleared the president personally of the crime.
The 448-page document was littered with redactions but crucially says that the special counsel did not clear Trump, saying: 'If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would state so.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on his inquiry into Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election described in extensive and sometimes unflattering detail how President Donald Trump tried to impede the probe, raising questions about whether he committed the crime of obstruction of justice.
The release of the 448-page report on Thursday after a 22-month investigation marked a milestone in Trump's tumultuous presidency and inflamed partisan passions ahead of his 2020 re-election bid.
Democrats said the report contained disturbing evidence of wrongdoing by Trump that could fuel congressional investigations, but there was no immediate indication they would try to remove him from office through impeachment.
Former CIA analyst says agencies dominated by liberals.
The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have become bastions of political liberals and the pro-Democratic Party views of intelligence personnel have increased under President Donald Trump, according to a journal article by a former CIA analyst.
John Gentry, who spent 12 years as a CIA analyst, criticized former senior intelligence leaders, including CIA Director John Brenan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former deputy CIA director Michael Morell, along with former analyst Paul Pillar, for breaking decades-long prohibitions of publicly airing their liberal political views in attacking Trump.
WNU Editor: How times change. I remember when President Obama was elected, in his first year the narrative was that the intel community was too conservative. As to what is my take on today's intel community. In theory, intelligence agencies are supposed to be staffed with non-partisan/apolitical civil servants, and the military agencies with military officers. In reality they are not. They have their own prejudices and biases, and group think is far more common than what it should be. Intelligence entities are also reflections of the political environment that they exist in, and their operations and management will reflect that. But we are also living in a unique time, and the culture on how former senior intel officials must keep their opinions to themselves is no longer there. When former CIA Director Brennan accuses President Trump of working for Russia .... in essence calling him a traitor .... you have to wonder how many who are currently in the intel community also feel that way, and what are they doing about it.
* John Walker Lindh, 38, was convicted of supporting the Taliban and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2002 * He is scheduled to be released from federal prison in Indiana on May 23 after 17 years behind bars * Lindh will not be allowed to own an internet-capable device without permission from his probation officer * Lindh also will not be permitted to watch any video content related to terrorism, or communicate online in any language other than English * He was among the group of fighters captured by US forces in November 2001 * In 2016 the National Counterterrorism Center found that Lindh was continuing to 'advocate for global jihad' and 'write and translate violent extremist texts' * And in 2015 Lindh told a television news producer 'that he would continue to spread violent extremist Islam upon his release'
American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh will be released from prison next month after agreeing to strict restrictions on his internet use, communications and travel.
Lindh, 38, will walk out of federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, a free man on May 23 after spending 17 years behind bars.
Lindh was among a group of Taliban fighters who were captured by US forces in November 2001, just months after the September 11 attacks and the beginning of the war in Afghanistan.
WNU Editor: He is going to be the first of many as their prison sentences run out. Sighh .... I prefer to remember Johnny Micheal Spann .... Remembering Johnny Micheal Spann (Legal Insurrection).
KYIV – A fresh opinion poll shows Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedic actor with no political experience, far ahead of incumbent Petro Poroshenko just days before Ukraine's presidential runoff.
The poll issued on April 18 by the research group Reiting showed Zelenskiy with 57.9 percent of the vote and Poroshenko at 21.7 percent. Reiting polled 3,000 voters in all regions, except annexed Crimea, from April 12-16.
A previous poll by Reiting from April 5-10 gave Zelenskiy 61 percent while Poroshenko received 24 percent.
Zelenskiy, who stars on a TV comedy series about a teacher who becomes president after denouncing corruption, won nearly twice as many votes as Poroshenko in the first round of voting on March 31.
If one of Japan's F-35s is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific, we are probably about to see one of the biggest underwater espionage and counter-espionage ops since the Cold War. If it was operating without its radar reflectors pinpointing where it went in may be an issue. 1/2
U.S. and Japanese officials say that speculations that foreign adversaries are after the wreckage of a downed F-35A stealth fighter in Asia are so far unfounded.
The Japanese F-35 stealth fighter jet disappeared from radar over the Pacific Ocean earlier this month during a night training flight.
Some wreckage of the aircraft was found last week. Maj. Akinori Hosomi, the pilot, is missing and the U.S. is assisting in the search.
WNU Editor: Main points from the Mueller Commission report and Attorney General Barr's remarks this morning.
* Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election, but no Americans were involved, and there was no collusion.
* No conspiracy to collude.
* No Presidential executive privilege was used, and the President took no act that deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation
* Attorney General Barr and Deputy General Rosenstein are convinced that with the evidence presented, obstruction was not committed.
- How can you push an obstruction case when no crime was committed? - How can you push an obstruction case when no one was fired during the tenure of the Mueller report? - How can you push an obstruction case when in a fit of anger he wanted people fired, but were never fired? - How can you push an obstruction case when no Presidential executive privilege was used? - How can you push an obstruction case when President Trump took no act that deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation? - How can you push an obstruction case when someone who believes he is innocent lashes out publicly that a witch-hunt is being instigated against him?
I read very fast, and from what I have read so far this report reads more like a political document that was deliberately made to keep the discussion and narrative of the past two years to continue. And with a lot of innuendo being posted in this report, I can see why. Case in point, CNN and CTV News in Canada are pushing the narrative that President Trump told Attorney General Sessions that with the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller he is now f____ed. The context of this CNN and CTV News story is false. What President Trump said to everyone was basically the following .... that the appointment of Special Counsels have a history of paralyzing a White House and its agenda, and it would also create the narrative that he won the election due to the Russians when he knows that he won it on his own.
The amount of fake news that I am seeing on TV while I am reading the report is quite a sight to see. And I can understand why. They are melting down right now because they bought into the Russian collusion story, and this report is telling them the opposite. And while the lead story should be no collusion and no conspiracy to collude, it will not be.
In conclusion. The one sentence that caught my eye was the report's assertion that they have no evidence to exonerate President Trump for obstruction (this is the last paragraph of Part II, page 182, of the report). Is this the state of U.S. Justice today? That the person who is being accused must provide the evidence to prove that he is innocent? According to the Mueller Report and many in the media today this is the case, and as far as they are concerned, President Trump must provide the evidence to be exonerated. Sighhhh .... this is how Soviet Justice operated, and how the justice system of many authoritarian governments function today. Is the U.S. now abandoning this principle? Apparently yes.
Update #1: The parts that were redacted did not surprise me. Grand jury testimonies. ongoing trials, and methods used to gather information need to be kept confidential.
Update #2: A full news roundup followed by commentaries and opinions will be posted later this evening.
Attorney General William Barr preparing to speak at Thursday's news conference to discuss the special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential race. Reuters
Attorney General William Barr on Thursday released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his sprawling investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The release of the report comes just over three weeks after Barr laid out what he described as Mueller's core findings in a four-page letter that effectively cleared President Trump of allegations of criminal coordination between his campaign and Moscow, and just over an hour after Barr held a press conference reiterating there was no "collusion."
For the first time in years, the Department of Defense has denied a request to declassify the current size of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.
"After careful consideration. . . it was determined that the requested information cannot be declassified at this time," wrote Andrew P. Weston-Dawkes of the Department of Energy in a letter conveying the DoD decision not to disclose the number of warheads in the U.S. arsenal at the end of Fiscal Year 2018 or the number that had been dismantled.
KABUL (Reuters) - A meeting between the Taliban and Afghan politicians and civil society aimed at ending more than 17 years of war in Afghanistan has been postponed, officials and diplomats said on Thursday, citing Taliban objections to the size of the Afghan delegation.
The talks were set to begin on Friday in Doha, but a senior government official in Kabul said "the gathering has been called off for now and details were being reworked."
Afghan delegates scheduled to fly to the Qatari capital on Thursday were told the trip was postponed and new dates were being discussed, a western diplomat in Kabul said.
WNU Editor: The Afghan government is sending a delegation of 250 with 52 of them being women. It is not only the size that bothers the Taliban, but I am willing to bet that the presence of 52 women delegates is a bridge too far for them to accept.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency said earlier that Kim Jong-un might visit Russia next week
MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will hold a meeting in Russia before the end of the month, the Kremlin said in a statement published on its website.
"Vladimir Putin will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Kim Jong-un will make a visit to Russia in the second half of April at Vladimir Putin's invitation," the statement reads.
Various options for a summit were under discussion in 2018, including a meeting on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok in September 2018 but the parties were unable to arrange a Putin-Kim meeting at the time. However, Russian authorities have stated on many occasions they are ready to welcome the North Korean leader at any time convenient for him.
WNU Editor: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's will be pushing to have access to Russian energy supplies. Russian President Putin will be in China on April 26-27, so their meeting will probably be held in Vladivostok before or after these dates.
More News On Russian President Putin Meeting North Korea's Kim Jong-un At The End Of April
As they're now America's two top rivals, it's easy to forget that China and Russia aren't allies and actually have decades of regional rivalry and have been at each other's throats more than once. In fact, in 1970, the Soviet Union started asking around about whether or not anyone would really care if they launched a preemptive nuclear strike against China.
WNU Editor: Even though Chinese - Russian relations are considered to be very good today, the historical and cultural mistrust still exists. Not trusting the east is deeply embedded in the Russian soul, and that is probably what propelled the Soviet leadership at the time to contemplate launching a nuclear strike against China. It fortunately did not happen, but that mistrust still exists, even though the leadership in both countries today are trying their best to forge better ties.
Helge Ingstad is floating on its own but officials are doubtful it can return to service.
A guided missile frigate that sank last year after a collision with an oil tanker is floating on its own while the Royal Norwegian Navy assesses the damage. The Helge Ingstad spent more than three months submerged in the frigid Norwegian Sea before being raised again in March. Experts believe the warship, exposed to oxygen-rich salt water, is so badly damaged it will never sail again.
Surveillance cameras in front of the giant portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in September 2009. China is increasingly monitoring on citizens' behavior. Jason Lee/Reuters
* Some local authorities around China are monitoring government employees' behavior outside work hours, Bloomberg reported. * At least three cities have started assessing public servants' activities outside of work to determine whether they get promoted, Bloomberg said. * This new form of scrutiny comes as China rolls out its ambitious social credit system, which aims to track, reward, and punish citizens' behavior. * China's Communist Party has also been cracking down on its members to ensure loyalty to the party and its leader, President Xi Jinping.
Local authorities around China have started monitoring civil servants' behavior outside of work hours, Bloomberg reported, as it sets up its ambitious surveillance state over citizens, bureaucrats, and Communist Party members.
At least three cities in China have rolled out various measures to track public servants' loyalty and behavior in their personal lives over the past year, Bloomberg reported.
They include assessing employees' behavior at work, at home, and in public to determine performance reviews and promotions, Bloomberg said. The specific kinds of behavior that would help or jeopardize a public servant's performance are not clear.
WNU Editor: China is the world's leader in developing and deploying facial and behavioural recognition software. I have see it work, and it is truly unsettling. Think of George Orwell's 1984, but backed with sophisticated and modern technology. China's goal is to implement this program nationwide in 2020.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry has issued a stinging rebuke of United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, hours after the country claimed to have tested a new tactical weapon.
In a statement released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, Foreign Ministry official Kwon Jong Gun said Pompeo had been "letting loose reckless remarks and sophism of all kinds against us every day."
Kwon said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had made his "principled stand" on negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington clear in a recent speech to the country's rubberstamp parliament.
"Everyone has a clear interpretation of his speech which says that the US should change its way of calculation and come up with responsive measures before the end of this year," Kwon said.
FRENCH billionaires came under attack after pledging to donate millions for the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was ravaged by a massive fire on Monday evening.
NORTH KOREA has tested its first missile system following the breakdown of nuclear talks with the United States - but what are "tactical guided weapons"?
NOTRE DAME faces a lengthy and costly renovation after a massive blaze tore through the medieval Catholic cathedral - but is Notre Dame owned by the Catholic Church and will the Vatican contribute towards its repair?
(BAUTA, Cuba) — Just after 8 a.m., Pura Castell got in line behind about 100 other people waiting for a chance to buy frozen chicken legs. For two hours she leaned on her cane watching people leave the state-run market with their 5-pound limit.
The chicken ran out at 10 a.m. while the 80-year-old Castell still had 20 people in front of her. She returned the next morning, but no chicken. Then, relief. A neighbor told her that chicken had arrived at the government store that distributes heavily subsidized monthly food rations. Her household of three was due three pieces, either thighs or drumsticks.
“I’ve taken care of myself my whole life,” said Castell, a retired janitor. “I don’t just sit on my hands. I’m worn out but I walk all over town.”
After two decades of relative stability fueled by cheap Venezuelan oil, shortages of food and medicine have once again become a serious daily problem for millions of Cubans. A plunge in aid from Venezuela, the end of a medical services deal with Brazil and poor performances in sectors including nickel mining, sugar and tourism have left the communist state $1.5 billion in debt to the vendors that supply products ranging from frozen chicken to equipment for grinding grain into flour, according to former Economy Minister José Luis Rodríguez.
Stores no longer routinely stock eggs, flour, chicken, cooking oil, rice, powdered milk and ground turkey, among other products. These basics disappear for days or weeks. Hours-long lines appear within minutes of trucks showing up with new supplies. Shelves are empty again within hours.
No one is starving in Cuba, but the shortages are so severe that ordinary Cubans and the country’s leaders are openly referring to the “special period,” the years of economic devastation and deep suffering that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s Cold War patron.
“It’s not about returning to the harshest phase of the special period of the ’90s,” Communist Party head Raul Castro said last week. “But we always have to be ready for the worst.”
Two days later, President Miguel Díaz-Canel said cutbacks were necessary because: “This harsh moment demands we set clearly defined priorities in order to not return to the worst moments of the special period.”
The Trump administration is working hard to push Cuba toward economic crisis. Washington has sanctioned Venezuela’s oil industry and the shipping companies that move Venezuelan oil to Cuba.
On Wednesday, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced further measures against Cuba and its allies, including a new cap on the amount of money that families in the United States can send their relatives on the island and new restrictions on travel to Cuba. “The troika of tyranny — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — is beginning to crumble,” he said.
The move followed the announcement a day earlier that lawsuits would now be permitted against foreign companies doing business in properties seized from Americans after the island’s 1959 revolution. The policy could deal a severe blow to Cuba’s efforts to draw foreign investment.
A senior Trump administration official said the economic pressure on Cuba was aimed at forcing the socialist government to stop helping its allies in Venezuela and Nicaragua. The U.S. has accused Cuba of sending soldiers and spies to both countries to strengthen their leaders against protests and potential defection. Cuba denies that.
“We’re going to make sure they cannot afford subsidized adventurism, subsidized subversion of democracy outside of their borders,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about U.S. policy toward Cuba. “At an extraordinarily vulnerable time in their history, they’re going to have to refocus on the domestic needs, their domestic pressures.”
Despite some market-oriented reforms over the last decade, Cuba is one of the last countries on Earth to maintain a Soviet-style economy, with most business run by the state.
The economy is afflicted by deep inefficiency and corruption. Many state employees demand bribes to provide services to the public. Others spend only a few hours a day at their jobs, spending the rest of their time doing informal private work or selling supplies stolen from their office, warehouse or factory. Despite a highly educated and generally well-qualified workforce, Cuba’s industrial sector is dilapidated after decades of underinvestment. The country produces little of value on the global market besides rum, tobacco and the professionals who earn billions for the government working as doctors, teachers or engineers in friendly third countries.
The agricultural sector is in shambles, requiring the country to import most of its food. Economy Minister Alejandro Gil said Saturday that Cuba would spend $5 billion on food and petroleum products this year.
Over the last 20 years, many of those billions came from Venezuela’s socialist government, which has deep ties to Cuba’s and sent nearly 100,000 barrels of oil daily for years. With Venezuela’s economic collapse, that has roughly halved, along with deep cutbacks in the economic relationship across the board. And the news has been bad in virtually every other sector of the Cuban economy. Nickel production has dropped from 72,530 metric tons in 2011 to 50,000 last year, according to Rodríguez, the former economics minister. The sugar harvest dropped nearly 44%, to a million tons. The number of tourists grew only 1%, with many coming on cruise ships, a relatively unprofitable type of visitor. Overall GDP growth has been stuck at 1% for the last three years.
Meanwhile, under agreements Castro struck to rehabilitate Cuba’s creditworthiness, the country is paying $2 billion in debt service to creditors such as Russia, Japan and the Paris Club.
State-run stores that sell low-quality Chinese household goods at double or triple their price outside the country are facing competition from vendors in Panama, Guyana, Mexico, Haiti and even Russia, where Cubans fly in, fill suitcases with goods, and return to sell them at a profit.
That overseas shopping has become a vacuum sucking precious hard currency out of Cuba. Economist Omar Everleny Pérez said he estimated that Cubans spent more than $2 billion a year buying products overseas.
With less cash on hand, there’s been even less in the state-run stores.
The manager of the butcher shop where Castell waited for chicken last week said she needed 80 boxes of chicken to fill that day’s demand and only 40 arrived.
Fears of a return to darker times are growing.
“During the special period we had it bad, like everyone. Even when we had money we couldn’t buy anything,” said Castell, a mother of six.
“It was really rough, blackouts, no food at all, I don’t want to go back to that,” said Ariadne Medina, a 47-year-old worker in a private restaurant who was waiting to buy chicken behind Castell.
Independent experts say a return to the depths of the special period is unlikely. Cuba does business with dozens of nations, hosts nearly 5 million tourists a year and Cubans can travel freely to dozens of countries on direct flights to the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Expatriates send billions home in annual remittances.
“The new government is trying to halt the deterioration, but it’s a tough assignment,” Pérez said. “It’s going to take resources and time.”
Fresh from a sold-out concert tour of the U.K. and Sweden, Afghanistan’s first female conductor is convinced music can help deliver peace to her war-torn country. If only the Taliban would listen.
At just 22, Negin Khpelwak has already stared down threats and intimidation from her conservative relatives, who wished she would take on any career but music. Now, like many of her fellow citizens, she is watching peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban with growing alarm.
“We can bring freedom, peace and honor to Afghanistan,” said Khpelwak, who leads the country’s the first all-female Zohra Orchestra who’ve played classical Western and Afghan music at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Women can’t go back to the dark days — they can break our instruments, they can ban the music, but they never take it from our hearts.”
The Taliban, who control or contest half the country, banned all forms of music during their brutal regime that ran from 1996 to 2001. Even now, when the orchestra played its last concert in Kabul in February, most of the 700 guests had to pass through as many as 10 security check points protected by armed guards and dogs.
The U.S. reached a draft peace agreement with the insurgent group in January that may eventually lead to a withdrawal of foreign troops and a Taliban pledge not to allow terrorists to use the country. Talks aimed at bringing an end to 18 years of war were scheduled to begin again over the weekend, but appear to have been stalled. After being initially excluded from the U.S.-led talks, the Afghan delegation was set to include 52 women, up from just a handful in earlier sessions.
The country’s key demands in the dialogue include preserving the current government system under “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,” holding elections and retaining the current constitution. U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is leading the negotiations. He’s hoping to finalize a deal this year before presidential elections slated for September.
Women’s Voices
Afghan women have repeatedly voiced concerns about the lack of female representation at the peace talks, particularly given what is at stake.
Women have won hard-fought gains in politics, business and education since 2001, pushing back against the country’s male-dominated society. Last year about 400 female candidates contested in 68 seats reserved for women in the parliament, while hundreds of women run small businesses and teach at schools, and more than 3.5 million girls are now in education.
Zakia Wardak has been fighting for women’s rights in Afghanistan for eight years. Last October she stood for a seat in the parliamentary elections in Kabul, the results of which have yet to be announced — sweeping aside concerns for her safety and about entering the hyper-masculine, deeply corrupt world of Afghan politics.
“I highly doubt peace will come at the cost of our rights because the women today are not the women of 1996, neither are the Taliban,” said Wardak, whose late father and brother were Afghan generals, noting she is sure Afghan women will be part of the wider negotiations.
There’s much at stake for Afghan women after the “horrors” they experienced during the last period of Taliban rule, said Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
Yet with U.S. President Donald Trump last month calling the war “ridiculous,” many analysts believe the Washington is ultimately unconcerned with protecting the relative gains for women in Afghanistan as it tries to extract itself from the seemingly unending conflict. Some also doubt the Taliban’s lip-service towards women’s rights.
“The Taliban claims to be a more moderate outfit than it was in previous years,” said Kugelman. “If it truly does represent a new and more conciliatory Taliban 2.0, then one would expect it to welcome Afghan women in negotiations. Unfortunately to this point there’s no indication this is happening.”
For now, the group still condemns and punishes anyone playing music, but said it would review its position and make a decision based on “the verdict of Islam” if it returns to the country after a peace deal, their spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said in a message, without providing more detail. The group’s current position banning all forms of music is also based on the verdict of Islam.
Musical Journey
Khpelwak was just a baby when the Taliban took over the country in 1996 and immediately banned women from attending schools or leaving home without a partner. Now she is at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, that world is alien to her.
“Music is part of our life and music is our passion,” she said at the school, urging both Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government and the U.S. to convince the Taliban not to harm musicians.
The founder and director of the school music — who himself survived a Taliban bombing in 2014 at a concert in Kabul — said the days of the militant group ruling the country as a dictatorship have now gone.
“The youth of Afghanistan today are a totally different force than the youths of 1996,” Ahmad Naser Sarmast, 56, said at his office adorned with musicians’ portraits and trophies lining the shelves. He said the new generation won’t allow the Taliban “to come and turn the wheel of history backward.”
Music has flourished in Afghanistan since 2001, and now hundreds of students — male and female — are learning the craft in Sarmast’s school, which has represented Afghanistan’s music in more than 35 countries since its inauguration in 2010.
Still, some female musicians worry the Taliban will forcibly push them to quit and stay at home.
“If the Taliban comes back, it might be a great danger for us,” said violinist Gul Mina, who is in grade 11 at the school and hopes to become a violin teacher in order to change other girls’ lives. “Their return could be a huge disaster to our lives and musical works.”
(LONDON) — Environmental protesters who have blocked London roads and bridges for more than three days said Thursday they plan to take their civil disobedience campaign to Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, at the start of the Easter holiday weekend.The Extinction Rebellion group said it would mount a protest at the airport on Friday. The group vowed to escalate its campaign of disruption if the British government doesn’t step up action against climate change. London’s Metropolitan Police force urged the group to reconsider, saying the airport action could “cause further disruption and misery to thousands of travelers, many of them families, over Easter.””Protesters can expect a robust police response,” said Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave. “We are determined to keep the airport operating.”Heathrow said it was “working with the authorities to address any threat of protests which could disrupt the airport.”
Hundreds of demonstrators have blocked central London sites including Waterloo Bridge over the River Thames, Parliament Square and the Oxford Circus and Marble Arch intersections since Monday.
The protest sites have sprouted tents, sound systems and even an ice cream van. Traffic has been snarled and many bus routes disrupted, to the frustration of commuters.
Police have made more than 460 arrests.
Extinction rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbrook said “more people are joining us all the time.”
“It’s certainly an option that tactics will be escalated if our demands are not met,” she said.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Britain’s interior minister, condemned the demonstrations, saying protesters “do not have the right to break the law and significantly disrupt the lives of others.”
“I expect the police to take a firm stance and use the full force of the law,” Javid said.
(KHARTOUM, Sudan) — Tens of thousands of protesters converged on the main sit-in in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Thursday to pressure the ruling military council to speed up the transition of power to a civilian government as the new rulers announced the arrests of former president Omar al-Bashir’s two brothers on corruption charges.
Military council spokesman Gen. Shams Eddin Kabashi was quoted by the official SUNA news agency as saying that Abdullah and Abbas al-Bashir were taken into custody, without providing additional details or saying when it happened.
The arrests were part of a broad sweep against officials and supporters of the former government.
The Sudanese military ousted Omar al-Bashir last week, after four months of street protests against his 30-year rule marred by conflict, civil war and corruption. Al-Bashir is also wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court for atrocities committee in the western region of Darfur.
“The arrests are ongoing of the ousted regime’s figures in addition to those who are suspected of corruption,” Kabashi said, adding that authorities are looking for a number of wanted fugitives. He said the detainees will be held in prisons in Khartoum and other cities.
The English-language Sudan Tribune said the brothers and al-Bashir’s wife are suspected of having accumulated illegal wealth through the years of al-Bashir’s rule.
The brothers’ detention was likely another concession by the military to the protesters, who have demanded that all key figures and ranking officials from the former president’s circle be arrested. A number of al-Bashir’s close associates and former government officials have already been taken into custody since the military overthrew al-Bashir last Thursday. A number of them are also wanted by the International Criminal Court.
The military council that now runs the country said the former president was transferred Tuesday to Koper Prison in the capital, Khartoum, a facility notorious for holding political prisoners under al-Bashir.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese Professionals Association, which has been spearheading anti-government street protests since mid-December, released Wednesday together with several opposition groups a proposed blueprint for the transfer of power from the military to a civilian government.
Though the street protesters were overjoyed at al-Bashir’s ouster, they were not happy with the military taking over and have demanded a swift handover of power to civilian rule. The military council has said it plans to rule for a maximum of two years as the country prepares for new elections.
The U.S. State Department said Thursday it supports a transition to a civilian government.
“The United States supports a transition to a peaceful and democratic Sudan led by civilians who represent the diversity of Sudanese society,” spokesman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. “The will of the Sudanese people is clear: it is time to move toward a transitional government that is inclusive and respectful of human rights and the rule of law. ”
The protesters fear the army, dominated by al-Bashir appointees, will cling to power or select one of its own to succeed him. They have vowed to continue to protest, focusing on a sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, until the transfer of power is complete.
The two-page blueprint posted online envisages a civilian presidential council made up of “revolutionary figures” and a defense minister, the only representative from the military.
It also proposes the formation of a Cabinet of technocrats to run daily affairs of the state and a legislative council to draft laws and oversee the Cabinet until a new constitution is written.
“We have to continue our sit-ins until a transitional civilian authority takes over,” the document says. “We have faith that our people’s victory is coming and that no power can stop our people from achieving all their goals.”
The military did not immediately comment on the document. The organizers of the protests called for a “one million people rally” to pressure the military to meet the demands of the protest movement. Chanting, dancing and clapping, protesters rallied in massive numbers in front of the military headquarters, the focal point of protests.
It’s not clear what will happen next to al-Bashir, a pariah in any countries. The military has said it would not extradite him to the ICC but has not ruled out that a future civilian government could someday hand him over to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
Meanwhile, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir offered to mediate in Sudan’s political crisis. In a letter seen by The Associated Press, Kiir this week pledged his support for a transition in which the rights of the Sudanese people are protected and offered to “mediate the on-going negotiations” among various groups.
Some in South Sudan are concerned that al-Bashir’s departure will hurt their countries’ fragile peace deal, which al-Bashir helped broker. South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in 2011, following decades of civil war.
But the new country subsequently sank into its own civil war, which ended with an agreement signed in September. The deal calls for opposition leader Riek Machar to return to South Sudan next month to once again become Kiir’s deputy, though that looks increasingly unlikely as tensions continue.
One political analyst called Kiir’s offer of mediation over al-Bashir a “hypocritical public relations” stunt.
“It doesn’t make sense. You cannot leave your house in a mess and claim to clean your neighbor’s house,” Jacob Chol, professor at the University of Juba, told the AP.
(PARIS) — Paris police investigators think an electrical short-circuit most likely caused the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, a police official said Thursday, as France paid a daylong tribute to the firefighters who saved the world-renowned landmark.
A judicial police official told The Associated Press that investigators made an initial assessment of the cathedral Wednesday but don’t have a green light to search Notre Dame’s charred interior because of ongoing safety hazards.
The cathedral’s fragile walls were being shored up with wooden planks, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak by name about an ongoing investigation.
Investigators so far believe the fire was accidental, and are questioning both cathedral staff and workers who were carrying out renovations. Some 40 people had been questioned by Thursday, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The police official would not comment on an unsourced report in Le Parisian newspaper that investigators are looking at whether the fire could have been linked to a computer glitch or the temporary elevators used in the renovation work, among other things. The prosecutor’s office said only that “all leads must be explored.”
Since the cathedral will be closed to the public for years, the rector of the Catholic parish that worships there has proposed building a temporary structure on the plaza in front of the Gothic-era landmark, and City Hall gave its approval Thursday “subject to technical restraints.”
“The rector has no cathedral for the moment. …. But I’m going to try to invent something,” Bishop Patrick Chauvet said.
A crypt containing vestiges dating from antiquity is located under the vast esplanade.
President Emmanuel Macron has said he wants Notre Dame to be restored in five years, a timeline that restoration specialists have questioned as overly ambitious, with some saying it could take three times that long to rebuild the 850-year-old architectural treasure. Macron hopes to reopen the cathedral in time for the 2024 Summer Olympics, which Paris is hosting.
Earlier Thursday, Macron held a ceremony at the Elysee Palace to thank the hundreds of firefighters who battled the fast-moving fire at Notre Dame for nine hours starting Monday evening, preventing the structure’s destruction and rescuing many of the important relics held inside.
“We’ve seen before our eyes the right things perfectly organized in a few moments, with responsibility, courage, solidarity and a meticulous organization”, Macron said. “The worst has been avoided.”
The cathedral’s lead roof and its soaring spire were destroyed, but Notre Dame’s iconic bell towers, rose windows, organ and precious artworks were saved.
Macron said the firefighters will receive an Honor Medal for their courage and devotion.
Paris City Hall also held a ceremony in the firefighters’ honor Thursday afternoon, with a Bach violin concert, two giant banners strung from the monumental city headquarters and readings from Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Remarkably, no one was killed in the blaze that broke out as the cathedral was in the initial stages of a lengthy restoration.
A large swath of the island in the Seine River where Notre Dame is located was officially closed Thursday by police, who cited “important risks” of collapse and falling objects. The area had been unofficially blocked off since the fire.
Meanwhile, workers using a crane removed some statues to lessen the weight on the cathedral’s fragile gables, or support walls, to keep them from collapsing since they were no longer supported by the roof and its network of centuries-old timbers that were consumed by the inferno.
They also secured the support structure above one of Notre Dame’s rose windows with wooden planks.
Among the firefighters honored Thursday was Paris fire brigade chaplain Jean-Marc Fournier, who told the Le Parisian daily he was able to save the cathedral’s consecrated hosts. The paper said he climbed on altars to remove large paintings, but that he was especially proud “to have removed Jesus” from the Cathedral — a reference to the Catholic belief that consecrated hosts are the body of Christ.
An earlier report credited Fournier with helping salvage the crown of thorns believed to have been worn by Jesus at his crucifixion, but Fournier told France Info Thursday he arrived after rescuers had already broken the relic’s protective covering and an official who had the secret code needed to unlock it finished the job. He praised the action that preserved “this extraordinary relic, this patrimony of humanity.”
Among others honored was Myriam Chudzinski, one of the first firefighters to reach the roof as the blaze raged. Loaded with gear, they climbed hundreds of steps up the cathedral’s narrow spiral staircase to the top of one of the two towers.
“We knew that the roof was burning, but we didn’t really know the intensity,” she told reporters. “It was from upstairs that you understood that it was really dramatic. It was very hot and we had to retreat, retreat. It was spreading quickly.”
Benedicte Contamin, who came to view the damaged cathedral from afar Thursday, said she’s sad but grateful it’s still there.
“It’s a chance for France to bounce back, a chance to realize what unites us, because we have been too much divided over the past years,” she said.
(PARIS) — France paid a daylong tribute Thursday to the Paris firefighters who saved Notre Dame Cathedral from collapse, while construction workers rushed to secure an area above one of the church’s famed rose-shaped windows and other vulnerable sections of the fire-damaged landmark.
President Emmanuel Macron held a ceremony at the Elysee Palace to thank the hundreds of firefighters who battled a fast-moving fire at Notre Dame for nine hours starting Monday evening, preventing the structure’s destruction and rescuing many of the important relics held inside.
“We’ve seen before our eyes the right things perfectly organized in a few moments, with responsibility, courage, solidarity and a meticulous organization”, Macron said. “The worst has been avoided.”
Macron said the firefighters will receive an Honor Medal for their courage and devotion.
As the ceremony took place, investigators continued seeking clues to what sparked the fire. The huge cathedral, including the spire that was consumed by flames and collapsed, was in the initial stages of a lengthy restoration.
The roof was destroyed, but Notre Dame’s iconic bell towers, rose windows, organ, and precious artworks were saved.
Fire officials warned that the building remains very fragile and extremely dangerous for construction workers, restoration experts and neighbors.
Police, citing “important risks” of collapse and falling objects, officially closed Thursday a large swath of the island in the Seine River on which Notre Dame sits. The area had been unofficially blocked off since the fire.
Workers using a crane were removing some statues to lessen the weight on the cathedral’s fragile gables, or support walls, and to keep them from falling, since the section lacked the support of the massive timber roof that burned up in the devastating blaze.
They were also securing the support structure above one of Notre Dame’s rose windows with wooden planks.
Paris City Hall was holding a ceremony in the firefighters’ honor Monday afternoon, with a Bach violin concert, two giant banners strung from the monumental city headquarters and readings from Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Remarkably, no one was killed in the fire, which began during a Mass, after firefighters and church officials speedily evacuated those inside.
Among the firefighters honored Thursday is Paris fire brigade chaplain Jean-Marc Fournier, who says he was falsely credited with helping salvage the crown of thorns believed to have been worn by Jesus at his crucifixion.
The chaplain says a team of rescuers broke the relic’s protective covering and an official who had the secret code to unlock the protection finished the job. Fournier told France Info on Thursday that his own team arrived on the heels of the salvaging and praised the action “to preserve this extraordinary relic, this patrimony of humanity.”
However, Fournier told the daily Le Parisian that he himself was able to save the most precious thing for Catholics from the fire, the cathedral’s consecrated hosts. The paper said he climbed on altars to remove large paintings, but that he felt especially proud of another personal salvaging operation: “to have removed Jesus” from the Cathedral.
For Catholics, consecrated hosts are the body of Christ.
Among others honored was Myriam Chudzinski, one of the first firefighters to reach the roof as the blaze raged. Loaded with gear, they climbed hundreds of steps up the cathedral’s narrow spiral staircase to the top of one of the two towers. She had trained at the site for hours for just this moment.
“We knew that the roof was burning, but we didn’t really know the intensity,” she told reporters. “It was from upstairs that you understood that it was really dramatic. It was very hot and we had to retreat, retreat. It was spreading quickly.”
Investigators so far believe the fire was accidental, and are questioning both cathedral staff and workers who were carrying out renovations. Some 40 people had been questioned by Thursday, according the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The building would have burned to the ground in a “chain-reaction collapse” had firefighters not moved as rapidly as they did to battle the blaze racing through the building, José Vaz de Matos, a fire expert with France’s Culture Ministry, said Wednesday.
An initial fire alert was sounded at 6:20 p.m., as a Mass was underway in the cathedral, but no fire was found. A second alarm went off at 6:43 p.m., and the blaze was discovered already consuming the roof.
Macron wants to rebuild the cathedral within five years — in time for the 2024 Summer Olympics that Paris is hosting — but experts say the vast scale of the work to be done could easily take 15 years, since it will take months, even years, just to figure out what should be done. Nearly $1 billion has been pledged for the cathedral’s restoration.
Benedicte Contamin, who came to view the damaged cathedral from afar Thursday, said she’s sad but grateful it’s still there.
“It’s a chance for France to bounce back, a chance to realize what unites us, because we have been too much divided over the past years,” she said.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea said Thursday that it had test-fired a new type of “tactical guided weapon,” its first such test in nearly half a year, and demanded that Washington remove Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from nuclear negotiations.
The test, which didn’t appear to be of a banned mid- or long-range ballistic missile that could scuttle negotiations, allows North Korea to show its people it is pushing ahead with weapons development while also reassuring domestic military officials worried that diplomacy with Washington signals weakness.
Separately, the North Korean Foreign Ministry accused Pompeo of playing down the significance of comments by leader Kim Jong Un, who said last week that Washington has until the end of the year to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy. Both the demand for Pompeo’s removal from the talks and the weapon test point to North Korea’s displeasure with the deadlocked negotiations.
In a statement issued under the name of Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the American Affairs Department at the Foreign Ministry, North Korea accused Pompeo of “talking nonsense” and misrepresenting Kim’s comments.
During a speech at Texas A&M on Monday, Pompeo said Kim promised to denuclearize during his first summit with President Donald Trump and that U.S. officials were working with the North Koreans to “chart a path forward so we can get there.”
“He (Kim) said he wanted it done by the end of the year,” Pompeo said. “I’d love to see that done sooner.”
The North Korean statement said Pompeo was “misrepresenting the meaning of our requirement” for the negotiations to be finalized by the year’s end, and referred to his “talented skill of fabricating stories.” It said Pompeo’s continued participation in the negotiations would ensure that the talks become “entangled” and called for a different counterpart who is “more careful and mature in communicating with us.”
In a speech at his rubber-stamp parliament last week, Kim said he is open to a third summit with Trump, but only if the United States changes its stance on sanctions enforcement and pressure by the end of the year.
Kim observed the unspecified weapon being fired Wednesday by the Academy of Defense Science, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said. Kim was reported to have said “the development of the weapon system serves as an event of very weighty significance in increasing the combat power of the People’s Army.”
The Associated Press could not independently verify North Korea’s claim, and it wasn’t immediately clear what had been tested. A major ballistic missile test would jeopardize the diplomatic talks meant to provide the North with concessions in return for disarmament. A South Korean analyst said that details in the North’s media report indicate it could have been a new type of cruise missile. Another possible clue: one of the lower level officials mentioned in the North’s report on the test — Pak Jong Chon — is known as an artillery official.
Some in Seoul worry that the North will turn back to actions seen as provocative by outsiders as a way to force Washington to drop its hard-line negotiating stance and grant the North’s demand for a removal of crushing international sanctions. A string of increasingly powerful weapons tests in 2017 and Trump’s response of “fire and fury” had many fearing war before the North shifted to diplomacy.
Russia announced Thursday that Kim will visit later this month for talks at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin, but gave no further details. Russian media have been abuzz in recent days with rumors about the rare meeting between the leaders.
Putin is to visit China later this month, and some media speculated that he could meet with Kim in Vladivostok, the far eastern port city near the border with North Korea.
Trump said last month that he “would be very disappointed if I saw testing.” There have been fresh reports of new activity at a North Korean missile research center and long-range rocket site where the North is believed to build missiles targeting the U.S. mainland. North Korean media said Wednesday that Kim guided a flight drill of combat pilots from an air force and anti-aircraft unit tasked with defending the North from an attack.
Kim Dong-yub, an analyst from Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said North Korea’s descriptions of the test show the weapon is possibly a newly developed cruise missile. The North’s report said the “tactical guided weapon” successfully tested in a “peculiar mode of guiding flight” and demonstrated the ability to deliver a “powerful warhead.”
The analyst said the test could also be intended as a message to the North Korean people and military of a commitment to maintaining a strong level of defense even as it continues talks with Washington over nukes.
Melissa Hanham, a non-proliferation expert and director of the Datayo Project at the One Earth Future Foundation, said the North Korean weapon could be anything from an anti-tank weapon to a cruise missile.
The North said Thursday that Kim Jong Un mounted an observation post to learn about and guide the test-fire of the weapon.
This is the first known time Kim has observed the testing of a newly developed weapon system since last November, when North Korean media said he watched the successful test of an unspecified “newly developed ultramodern tactical weapon.” Some observers have been expecting North Korea to orchestrate “low-level provocations,” like artillery or short-range missile tests, to register its anger over the way nuclear negotiations were going.
North Korean officials accompanying Kim at the test included Ri Pyong Chol and Kim Jong Sik, two senior officials from the North’s Munitions Industry Department who have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for their activities related to the country’s ballistic missile program. Ri is believed to be a key official involved in North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile development, while Kim Jong Sik has been linked to the country’s efforts to build solid-fuel missiles. The Pyongyang-based Munitions Industry Department is sanctioned both by the United States and the U.N. Security Council.
“Even if this is not a ‘missile’ test the way we strictly define it, these people and MID are all sanctioned entities for a reason,” Hanham said.
The White House said it was aware of the report and had no comment. The Pentagon also said it was aware but had no information to provide at this point. South Korea’s presidential office said it has no immediate comment. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it is analyzing the test but did not specifically say what the weapon appeared to be.
After the animosity of 2017, last year saw a stunning turn to diplomacy, culminating in the first-ever summit between the U.S. and North Korea in Singapore, and then the Hanoi talks this year. North Korea has suspended nuclear and long-range rocket tests, and the North and South Korean leaders have met three times. But there are growing worries that the progress could be killed by mismatched demands between the U.S. and North Korea over sanctions relief and disarmament.
(JAKARTA, Indonesia) — Indonesian President Joko Widodo said Thursday he has won re-election after receiving an estimated 54% of the vote, backtracking on an earlier vow to wait for official results after his challenger made improbable claims of victory.
Widodo, after meeting with parties in his coalition, told reporters that the leaders of Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and numerous other nations have congratulated him on securing a second term.
The vote estimate is based on so-called quick counts of a sample of polling stations by a dozen reputable survey organizations. Widodo said that 100% of sample polling stations have now been counted or close to that. The quick counts have been accurate in previous elections.
“We all know that the QC (quick count) calculation is a scientific calculation method. From the country’s experiences of past elections the accuracy is 99.9%, almost the same as real count results,” Widodo said.
Widodo’s rival, former Gen. Prabowo Subianto, has claimed he won 62% of the vote in Wednesday’s election based on his campaign’s own counts, repeating a similar claim when he lost to Widodo in 2014.
The Election Commission is required to release official results by May 22.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, is an outpost of democracy in a Southeast Asian neighborhood of authoritarian governments and is forecast to be among the world’s biggest economies by 2030. A second term for Widodo, the first Indonesian president from outside the Jakarta elite, could further cement the country’s two decades of democratization.
Subianto, a strident nationalist, ran a fear-based campaign, highlighting what he sees as Indonesia’s weakness and the risk of exploitation by foreign powers or disintegration.
Widodo said he had sent a representative to talk to Subianto and his camp.
“This afternoon I have sent an envoy to meet Prabowo to set a meeting, and if people see our meeting, we will be able to show how the elections have ended smoothly, safely and peacefully,” he said.
The country’s security minister and its military and police chiefs said earlier Thursday that they will crack down on any attempts to disrupt public order while official results from presidential and legislative elections are tabulated.
Security minister Wiranto, who uses a single name, told a news conference with the chiefs of police and all military branches that security forces will “act decisively” against any threats to order and security.
He said the voter turnout of 80.5% gives the winner of the presidential election “high legitimacy.”
National police chief Tito Karnavian said the Election Commission and courts are the appropriate institutions for resolving complaints about the election.
Subianto’s hard-line Muslim supporters plan mass prayers in central Jakarta on Friday but it was unclear if the event will be allowed to go ahead.
“I appeal to everybody not to mobilize, both mobilization to celebrate victory or mobilization about dissatisfaction,” Karnavian said.
The election was a huge logistical exercise with 193 million people eligible to vote, more than 800,000 polling stations and 17 million people involved in ensuring the polls ran smoothly. Helicopters, boats and horses were used to get ballots to remote and inaccessible corners of the archipelago.
Voting ran smoothly, apart from a few districts where logistical problems caused delays, and was peaceful, a remarkable achievement for a country steeped in political violence.
Widodo’s campaign highlighted his progress in poverty reduction and improving Indonesia’s inadequate infrastructure with new ports, toll roads, airports and mass rapid transit. The latter became a reality last month in chronically congested Jakarta with the opening of a subway.
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