Becoming an adult means realizing how expensive vacuums are.
With that knowledge, adults will also know that $100 off the new Dyson V11doesn't make it a budget-friendly. You really know you've made it when $599.99 sound like a good sale price.
Luckily, you don't have to choose between a cheap, crappy one and dipping into your savings fund. The Bissell Multi Reach Cordless Stick and Hand Vacuum has the exact same idea as the Dyson stick, but is on sale for $99 at Walmart today. (Now that's when $100 off really means something.)
Vacuuming is never a blast, but it's a lot less of a chore when you can get in and out of there fast. The Bissell Multi Reach goes from hardwood to carpet with ease, giving you cordless freedom and 20 minutes of runtime to cover multiple rooms without getting stuck. At just five pounds, vacuuming is more of fun to-do list activity and less of a sweaty workout. Read more...
So let's cut to the chase: whether you're looking for a new battery pack, printer, vacuum, or charger, there's something here you likely need or need to replace. In the words of Oprah, you get a discount, you get a discount, everyone gets a discount!
Ditch all those ugly wires and juice up your (compatible) devices with this Qi-enabled portable charger. Simply put your gadget on top of it, and wait for it to works its magic. It also functions as a rechargeable battery with a whopping 10,000 mAh capacity, two USB ports, and Micro-USB Rover-charging port, allowing you to fuel three devices all at the same time. Read more...
There’s something nice about having a vast kitchen appliance arsenal that allows you to cook delicious meals with endless possibilities — the only downside is that if you don’t have a gigantic kitchen, you’re going to run out of space to fit all of your most trusted products. Thanks to Ninja, you can now toss a few of those old devices and replace them with one all-encompassing culinary creation.
The Ninja Foodi multi-cooker, which combines multiple kitchen appliances into one, is currently $80 off on Amazon — it’ll be the most useful space-saver you ever purchase.
Spolier alert: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, episode 5.
Cleganebowl finally happened, and unlike a lot of other moments in the final season of Game of Thrones thus far, this one was satisfying.
While King's Landing was being beset by dragon fire, Sandor and Gregor Clegane met on the crumbling steps of the Red Keep for one final fight, brother against brother, Hound against Mountain, chaotic good against chaotic evil.
It was a moment that Game of Thrones fans were waiting for — the Mountain finally meeting his just ends for his evil deeds at the hands of his brother who he tormented and burnt, forever scarring his face and his psyche. Read more...
The mother of all battles is finally here. Dany, and her troops have made their way to King's Landing. Cersei is ready with her army. Who will prevail? Read more...
Beautube continues to be the messy hellscape that it is, but the feud that went down between two major YouTubers just goes to show that nobody is above drama. Still, James Charles has a history of problematic behavior — why did it take until now for the community to cancel him?
YouTube's beauty community was shaken on Friday when Tati Westbrook dropped a 43-minute video exposing her longtime friend and mentee James Charles. Among other reprehensible behavior, Tati also denounced his habit of allegedly sexually harassing straight men.
The takedown followed weeks of rumors, screenshots, and snarky reaction videos from other vloggers, so it wasn't new, but it was the catalyst that has other influencers distancing themselves from the teenage makeup guru. Read more...
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. If you want to get the most out of your money when it comes to gaming, you need to look at the bundle deals.
Sure, you could go out and buy a Nintendo Switch, and then purchase a couple of games to play separately, but this is foolish for a couple of reasons. It's more work for you, for a start. It will also inevitably end up costing you more money. It just doesn't make any sense to do things this way.
The best solution is to purchase a bundle, with a console and games included. You get everything you need all at once, and you'll end up saving on list price. Take the Nintendo Switch, for example. You can take home the console, controllers, two games, and a gameware starter kit, for under £300 from GAME. Read more...
May is National Masturbation Month, and we're celebrating with Feeling Yourself, a series exploring the finer points of self-pleasure.
So far, 2019 hasn't been a particularly sexy year.
When you think about, we've all had to watch a lot of straight-up nonsense go downGreen Book won the Oscar for Best Picture, Jeff Bezos' "sexts" leaked, and Sonic the Hedgehog got a full set of human teeth, for goodness sake. Gross!
A bunch of this year's pop culture moments have been genuinely disappointing, but we're not going to let that harsh our self-love vibes. From sexy fashion statements and television characters, to memes and music, 2019 has definitely given us some glorious moments worthy of recalling during the act of self-pleasure. Read more...
Annie might have said that you're never fully dressed without a smile, but really, a watch is more important.
You might be rocking that new suit, with a fresh trim and dark shades, but you still need a stylish watch to pull the whole look together. Listen, we don't make the rules, we just enforce them.
Everyone has different tastes when it comes to what you should put on your wrist, but the crowd pleaser continues to be stainless steel watches with black dials. We don't know what it is about this style, but it just works. It's also a pretty timeless look (get it?), meaning any purchase you make is for the long-term, which is how it should be when you are dropping hundreds of pounds. Read more...
You only really notice how great your electric toothbrush is when you don't have it. Go away for a few days with just a little manual brush, and you'll quickly start longing for the deeper clean you get at home.
Nowadays electric toothbrushes come with all the bells and whistles to ensure you get a great clean, every time. You can get brushes with Bluetooth connectivity, multiple cleaning modes, pressure sensors, and brush head options. You can actually get all of this with one device.
The Oral-B SmartSeries 7000 CrossAction electric toothbrush has all of the above, with a grand total of six cleaning modes for you to switch between. You can take your pick from daily clean, gum care, sensitive, whitening, deep clean, and tongue cleaner. You also get a travel case, visible pressure sensor, and Wireless SmartGuide with any purchase. Read more...
Warning: Contains spoilers forGame of ThronesSeason 8, Episode 5.
We can likely add one more body to the death count from last night's thrilling, fiery episode of Game of Thrones: Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Sunday night after the episode aired, Rodgers confirmed his cameo on Instagram, sharing a photo of him in costume.
Oh, Varys. You saw it all coming. In truth, you'd seen it all before. But your warnings went unheeded and then, well, you know the rest. Dragonfire to the face.
It's abundantly clear in the penultimate Game of Thrones episode why no one has ever been truly safe on this show. They're all terrible people and they all deserve to burn for it. Our final minutes with Varys claim the latest episode's MVP trophy only because he had the foresight to recognize that.
It's foresight that was born out of serving under five different Westerosi rulers, including the big one: Aerys II Targaryen. The Mad King. The father of and model for Daenerys Targaryen's seemingly inescapable undoing. Read more...
Mondays can be tough on the body and soul, but you can take certain measures to make them more tolerable. You can get a good night's sleep, stay hydrated, or get some exercise. You could also grab a bargain, or a combination of all of these tried and tested methods of beating the blues.
We have lined up a selection of the best deals on speakers, headphones, grooming essentials, and more, so that you can start the week in the best possible way. This is your chance to save on top brands like Anker, Logitech, Sony, Oral-B, Kenwood, and Philips.
These are the best deals from across the internet for April 13. Read more...
Being a girl or woman is knowing that you're full of complexities and contradictions that society helped create but discourages you from claiming or criticizing.
The doting mother secretly battles depression intensified by the expectation of "having it all" while having no support at home or from most politicians. A black woman is supposed to contain a lifetime of rage while someone casually goads her with racist comments or behavior. The transgender girl is treated like a predator in her school's bathroom and develops crushing anxiety that transphobic people then blame on her identity. Eventually, women lose count of how many times they've been gaslit into thinking their pain is their doing. Read more...
Randomly getting inspired to clean the entire house sounds productive — until your hand-me-down vacuum craps out and everything comes to a standstill. It's about time you invested in a new one: The Dyson V11 is Dyson's latest and greatest stick vacuum, which has only been on the market since April — and Amazon is offering it for $100 off today.
Once your cleaning has been made easy, don't stop there. Get a hand from Alexa with voice commands and video calls on the Amazon Echo Show, which will get you a free Echo Dot with your purchase. Connect it to smart lights, plugs, or even a TV.
There's no other way to say it: toilets are gross.
Considering you really have no choice but to sit on the throne every day of your life, the least you can do is make it smell a bit better. And no, we're not talking about merely spraying your comfort station with a sickeningly sweet air freshener, or lighting up a ridiculously overpriced candle by the sink. You're better than that.
LooLoo is a fully-automated toilet freshener that will change the way you do your business in the bathroom. Engineered with multiple infrared sensors that stay inside the toilet cavity, it sprays a blend of essential oils onto the water as soon as it senses your body heat. When it detects that your tushie is perched upon the toilet, it traps unwanted scents beneath the water's surface to keep the air smelling fresh. Read more...
Obviously there was all the historical foreshadowing — The Mad King; that unnerving expression about tossing a coin whenever a new Targaryen is born — but there were also the literal clues: the visions. Read more...
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which is recovering from last week's security incident which allowed hackers to steal 7,000 bitcoins (roughly $40 million), said on Monday it has strengthened its security and promised it will allow deposits and withdrawals on Tuesday, May 14.
Following the hack, Binance halted all deposits and withdrawals to its platform until it could fully investigate what had caused the security breach. Trading on Binance was allowed to continue.
"In the past few days, we have made some significant overhauls to our system, with a large number of advanced security features added and/or completely re-architected. We will share details on some of the changes later," Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao wrote in a blog post. Read more...
It's thanks to a rare event called iterative evolution, in which the process of evolution from a same ancestor is repeated along different points in history.
In this case, the white-throated rail — a bird indigenous to Madagascar — had evolved to become flightless in different occasions separated by a few thousand years. Read more...
Upskilling has become a big part of our everyday lives. In an ever-evolving tech age, we’re eager to learn, experience, and do more than ever before. So, it comes as no surprise that taking on new challenges and exploring different directions in life has become the norm for so many of us.
But how do we become more proactive yet practical with our time when we barely have any left at the end of each day? We head to the internet, of course.
Take your study higher
It’s time to sharpen those pencils, dust off the books, and get back to basics. Well, sort of.
Online degrees and computer-based learning have become such a big part of our education experience that it’s no surprise students are enrolling in degrees they can tailor to their specific needs. Levelling up in an online capacity (without those pesky time and distance barriers getting in the way) allows us to take a more personalised approach to learning — as well as doing so in our own time Read more...
Constance Wu, who seemed rather unenthused at Fresh Off the Boat getting another season, has inspired other celebrities to react in the same way.
Wu came under the spotlight over the weekend after posting tweets and Instagram comments which indicated she was not happy about the renewal of her sitcom, which is now set to enter its sixth season.
So upset right now that I’m literally crying. Ugh. Fuck
OK, so you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve heard the hype, but let’s face it — you still can’t distinguish John Wick from a candle wick.
Never fear, you’re not the only one. Here’s everything you need to know about the legendary hitman and his cohort of friends and frenemies before the latest flick in the franchise hits screens across the country.
It’s been two long years since we last saw John on screen in John Wick: Chapter 2, so the anticipation for the third instalment has been intense. Yep, it’s been a minute. As the movie gods would have it, things in Wick-world have well and truly gone from bad to worse in the meantime. Read more...
Warning: Major spoilers from Game of Thrones Season 8, episode 5.
Queen Cersei: Destroyer of Septs, Lover of Elephants, and Mother of Dead Children is no more.
The Battle for King's Landing has come and gone, taking with it the Clegane brothers, Euron Greyjoy, Varys, practically all of Dany's credibility, and both of the long-time problematic Lannister twins.
Crushed by a whole bunch of rocks (yep), Cersei and Jaime Lannister met their end on Sunday, just a week before Game of Thrones' big finale. While plenty of fans called it, reactions to the major development have been no less impassioned. Read more...
There's one episode left in Game of Thrones and there are so many loose strings that need to be tied up.
After the siege of King's Landing, which was more of a war crime-filled massacre than a battle, there is only one queen left in Westeros — Daenerys Targaryen. The only problem is, she burned so many innocent civilians to death that there's no way she ends up on the Iron Throne without at least some resistance from the true heir Jon Snow and the vengeful Arya Stark.
The preview doesn't give us much, but the conflict at King's Landing that left so many people dead, buried, and burned is over. In the ashes of the capital city of Westeros, there are only a few main characters left: Daenerys, Jon, Arya, and Tyrion. At least one of them has to live, right? Read more...
What does a wondrous cloud of monarch butterflies taking flight at once sound like? A waterfall, of course.
YouTuber and tropical entomologist Phil Torres, who posts short documentary videos as The Jungle Diaries, patiently waited at Mexico's Sierra Chincua Reserve to show this exact moment, when millions of migrating butterflies take off after winter.
"It's one of the rarest sounds on Earth," said Torres. "The sound of millions of monarch butterflies flying around is a world treasure and we need to protect this incredible species."
It's not just audibly stunning, either. Torres' images of monarch butterflies clustered together on tree branches and trunks for the winter are quite simply incredible. Read more...
Saturday brought some big news for fans of Jordan Peele's The Twilight Zone reboot.
The show is going black & white. The full-color version will still be there, but a black & white option will be available to anyone who wants to kick it old school and watch the suspense-horror series in a style that more closely mimics the look and feel of the original series.
It's important to note something hereThe Twilight Zone reboot is a CBS All Access exclusive. It doesn't air on TV at all. If you want to watch it, you've got to subscribe to the network's Netflix/Hulu-like streaming service, for which you'll pay a minimum of $7 per month. Read more...
The first seeds of SpaceX's Starlink project will soon be planted.
On Saturday, Elon Musk tweeted out a photo of 60 satellites loaded into the fairing, or nose cone, of his company's Falcon rocket. The hardware represents a first step toward completing Starlink, an eventual satellite constellation that will beam high-speed internet down to Earth from space.
The fairing is the same one that carried a Tesla Roadster into space in 2018. Musk included a photo of that as well, just to give his followers a better sense of scale. Where the Roadster barely filled up the bottom portion of the fairing's interior, the satellites look positively crammed in. Read more...
Warning: This story contains spoilers for Season 8 of Game of Thrones.
Sunday's episode of Game of Thrones is supposed to be a big one. Per Emilia Clarke's recommendation, you should watch it on the "biggest TV" possible. Sunday is also Mother's Day, which has viewers wondering: Is this the day Cersei meets her end?
The theory makes sense. For one thing, Daenerys is ready to burn sh*t down after Cersei had Missandei killed. For another, Cersei is pregnant (unless she's lying about being pregnant, which is possible).
He called himself the Tiger King and plastered his face on highway billboards in Texas and Oklahoma. He bred big cats, bears, baboons and more. He lived, with a parade of partners, on the grounds of his private zoo. He threatened a rival with murder — repeatedly, on YouTube — and tried to hire a hit man to do the deed.
Broken Ground is a podcast by the Southern Environmental Law Center that unearths environmental issues in the South by sharing the stories of communities, accidental environmentalists, and ordinary citizens.
Keep your essentials within arm's reach (literally) with this Smart Sheets® Gray Microfiber Sheet Set — they discreetly fit your glasses, medicine, tissues and whatever else you need. A full set will cost you just $32.99 with this limited time discount.
Kawhi Leonard finished with 41 points to lead the Toronto Raptors to a Game 7 win over The Philadelphia 76ers, with his last two points coming on an off-balance buzzer-beater.
Broken Ground is a podcast by the Southern Environmental Law Center that unearths environmental issues in the South by sharing the stories of communities, accidental environmentalists, and ordinary citizens.
What makes an antihero show work? Sara Fredman explores the fine-tuning that goes into writing a bad guy we can root for, and asks whether the same rules apply to women.
In the first of BBC Culture's new series on fiction that predicted the future, Hephzibah Anderson looks at the work of John Brunner, whose vision of 2010 was eerily accurate.
Alex is a 43-year-old San Franciscan who works in the financial sector. He also eagerly eats uneaten and untouched leftover food off of plates if he spots it out in the open at a public dining establishment, even if it's off a stranger's plate.
Queen Victoria's beloved husband, Prince Albert, died on 14 December 1861 at the age of 42. The cause of his death has long been attributed to typhoid fever — but was this really what killed him?
When I joined Facebook in 2008, my daughter was past the baby stage, but I noticed immediately that Facebook was littered with photos and posts about babies and young children.
"An introverted young man joins a renowned lobotomist on a tour to promote the doctor's recently-debunked procedure. As he increasingly identifies with the asylum's patients, he becomes enamored with a rebellious young woman and lost in the burgeoning New Age movement of the west."
In 2017 Ryan Chylinski quit his job and hit the road in a camper to photograph rockets. A full-time rocket chaser, he's helping dig up details on how SpaceX really works.
President Trump's top economic adviser says there is a "strong possibility" Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 economic summit in Japan next month https://t.co/89TaudJDIj
China currently has 3 million of their people in concentration camps for being Muslim.
Congressman – I know you were elected to bring fresh new perspectives to Washington, but you really should read up on subjects before tweeting about them.https://t.co/ij36SZHDql
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un supervises a "strike drill" for multiple launchers and tactical guided weapon into the East Sea during a military drill in North Korea, in this May 4, 2019. KCNA via REUTERS
WNU Editor: The above picture came fomr this photo-gallery .... Kim Jong Un, military man (Reuters).
More than half a century ago this week, the United States conducted its only farm-to-table nuclear missile test. The test, code-named "Frigate Bird," involved the launch of a Polaris missile from a submarine carrying a live nuclear warhead. The missile traveled a thousand miles before streaking down on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, exploding with the force of 37 Hiroshima bombs.
The United States conducted a staggering 1,030 nuclear weapon tests between 1945 and 1992, the year it ceased testing. The Frigate Bird test, which took place on May 6th, 1962 was the only case in the entire history of the US nuclear arsenal in which a nuclear missile actually delivered its horrifically lethal payload.
The Sea Hunter is a fully robotic ship, which makes it perfect for high-risk missions at sea.
The U.S. Navy's ambitious push into unmanned ships may have a new mission: ferrying critically-needed supplies through hostile waters.
The Navy believes its new Sea Hunter unmanned ship, and others like it, could be used to transport supplies to small groups of ground forces trapped behind enemy lines or operating over a wide area. The unmanned ship would get the job done in situations where ships risk being intercepted by enemy forces.
Joe Digenova shared the conclusion of the OIG report on FISA abuse today on @LouDobbs - because of the recently uncovered information from the FOIA release and John Solomon today, he is now having to add and investigate that. Thanks for the clip @detachedazpic.twitter.com/e8ihB4h2Wr
Washington, D.C. super-lawyers Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing have consistently been ahead of the news on the course of the unfolding scandal of spying on the Trump campaign and administration. Appearing last night on Lou Dobbs's Fox Business Network show, the two law and marriage partners revealed that the DoJ inspector general has already concluded that the last three of four FISA warrants were illegally obtained.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes there is a "real risk" that if American troops are pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban might retake control of the country. He told "Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan that the U.S. should ensure that the Afghan government is stable before bringing American forces home. There are currently 12,000 U.S. service members stationed there.
WNU Editor: Why the CBS interview with a former Defense Secretary now? Why push the case for U.S. soldiers to remain in Afghanistan? Is this the best that the Washington foreign policy establishment can do?
CAMP MAIWAND, Afghanistan -- Taliban raids like the one on a small outpost in Wardak province that killed 11 of his soldiers earlier this month are a vexing problem for Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq Safi.
But soon the remote, often undermanned checkpoints will be shuttered in favor of larger bases.
Safi, who heads a brigade in the army's 203rd Corps, commands troops who guard two highways into the Afghan capital from Wardak and Logar provinces south of Kabul. Some of his checkpoints, vulnerable to attack, are difficult to supply and reinforce, he said.
The general closed several such outposts in Logar over the winter and plans to do the same in Wardak this spring, with the aim of forming bands of larger bases, each with about 40 troops, along the key highways.
WNU Editor: This is the second attack in two weeks on a church in Burkina Faso. What is even more disturbing about today's attack is that a large number of Jihadists were involved, with some estimates as high as 30. In a country that has a long history of religious tolerance, it is obvious that those days are now gone.
More News On Today's Jihadist Attack In Burkina Faso
Sen. Rand Paul on Mueller probe: "I think since the very beginning this all has been politically motivated. Now both sides are doing it. I think it goes back even to the Clintons. This is why we shouldn't have special prosecutors" https://t.co/s5XgPCmrVqpic.twitter.com/A69JAu6gOR
If there's one thing that suggests Congressional Democrats are not acting in good faith amid their new obstruction crusade, it's this;
House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) held Attorney General William Barr in contempt on Wednesday for failing to turn over the full Mueller report and its underlying evidence - yet not a single Democrat in Congress has elected to look at the 99.9% unredacted 'volume 2' section of the Mueller's findings provided to Congress by the DOJ, which specifically covers the obstruction portion of Mueller's investigation (Section "A" of the report covering alleged conspiracy with Russia was offered 98.5% unredacted).
WNU Editor: This has been politics since Day One. And aside from some Grand Jury testimony, a growing realization that there is probably nothing in the unredacted Mueller Report that will bolster the Democrat case against the President. So what is next? The Democrats are hoping that something new will come out of this .... Channeling maybe-yes, maybe-no Mueller: Speak, Bob, Speak! (AP).
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said on Saturday he has asked his envoy to the United States to meet with Pentagon officials to "cooperate" on a solution to the South American country's political crisis.
Guaido, the leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, added he had received word from China that the country would join a diplomatic effort between European and Latin American countries, known as the International Contact Group on Venezuela, to negotiate an end to the crisis.
In January, Guaido invoked the OPEC nation's constitution to assume an interim presidency, arguing President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 re-election was illegitimate. He has been recognized by most Western and Latin American countries, but Maduro has retained the support of allies China, Russia and Cuba.
Read more .... WNU Editor: For the U.S. this would be a mistake. But for many in Venezuela these are desperate times, and desperate times mean desperate measures, including pleading for help to the U.S. and to Venezuela's neighbours who support the opposition.
More News On Venezuela's Opposition Leaders Wanting U.S. Military Support In A Bid To Topple Maduro
GENEVA (Reuters) - A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Sunday the U.S. military presence in the Gulf used to be a serious threat but now represented a target, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported.
The U.S. military has sent forces, including an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers, to the Middle East in a move U.S. officials said was to counter "clear indications" of threats from Iran to its forces in the region.
The USS Abraham Lincoln is replacing another carrier rotated out of the Gulf last month.
The new data, from Opinium, predicts the Brexit Party will earn more votes than the Labour Party and the Tories combined in the European elections
The same poll also found that 28% of voters would back Jeremy Corbyn's party in a General Election, ahead of Theresa May's Conservatives on 22% - with the Brexit Party in third with 21%
* The Brexit Party is slated to win 34% of the vote in upcoming European elections * Labour is on 21% and the Tories are predicted to win just 11% of the vote * The data, from Opinium, also puts Labour first on 28% for a General Election * This is ahead of Conservatives on 22%, with the Brexit Party third on 21% * A separate poll puts the Brexit Party ahead of the Tories in a general election * ComRes survey puts Labour on 27%, Brexit Party on 20% and Tories on 19% * This would be the worst result in history for the Conservative Party
The Brexit Party will earn more votes than Labour and the Conservatives combined in the European Parliament elections, and could even beat the Tories in a General election, two extraordinary polls revealed this morning.
In an Opinium poll in the Observer, focused on this month's European elections, Nigel Farage's new party is predicted to hoover up 34 per cent of the vote. The same poll gave Labour 21 per cent and put the Tories in a miserable fourth place with 11 per cent
But an even more extraordinary poll, commissioned by a Brexit Party donor and published in the Sunday Telegraph, said for the first time the Brexit Party would beat the Tories in a General Election.
The ComRes survey of voting intentions put Brexit on 21 per cent to the Conservatives' 20, which would see Farage's team win 49 seats, becoming the UK's second biggest party after Labour, with 137.
China is copying malware the NSA has used against them. Is this preventable or is it an inherent weakness of cyber warfare?
WASHINGTON: Adversaries have been copying and stealing each others' weapons ever since Ape A threw a rock at Ape B and Ape B got the bright idea to throw it back. But recent revelations from Symantec and The New York Times suggest this problem is much bigger with cyber weapons. Why? In order to attack an enemy's computer, they have to copy their code onto it. It's like bombing an enemy with munitions that scatter their own blueprints around the blast site.
US hacking tools have gone astray before, most notoriously when a mysterious group called Shadow Brokers repeatedly released National Security Agency code for hackers around the globe to use in attacks like WannaCry. But cybersecurity analysts at Symantec have found evidence that hackers working for China's Ministry of State Security were using NSA-built cyber weapons "at least a year prior to the Shadow Brokers leak." (To avoid offending nation-states, the Symantec report only IDs the Chinese as "Buckeye" and NSA as "Equation Group"). Symantec's suggested explanation: "one possibility is that Buckeye may have engineered its own version of the tools from artifacts found in captured network traffic, possibly from observing an Equation Group attack."
WNU Editor: The genie is out of the bottle. The Chinese are grateful to have this intel, and they (and probably a few other countries) are using it. Here is an article explaining what the Chinese are doing with this information .... How China uses cyber theft and information warfare (Derek B. Johnson, FCW).
....The only problem is that they know I am going to win (best economy & employment numbers in U.S. history, & much more), and the deal will become far worse for them if it has to be negotiated in my second term. Would be wise for them to act now, but love collecting BIG TARIFFS!
* Chinese and U.S. negotiators held trade talks in Washington Friday after Trump more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods. * Trump said Friday's talks were constructive and negotiations will continue. * Treasury Secretary Steve Mnunchin told CNBC no further trade talks are planned between the two sides "as of now."
President Donald Trump on Saturday called for China to act now on trade or risk facing a worse deal if negotiations continue into a possible second term after the 2020 presidential election.
Trump claimed China was 'beaten so badly' in recent trade negotiations that Beijing wanted to wait until after the 2020 election in the hope a Democrat would win the White House and offer them a better deal.
Trump, however, said he would prevail in the upcoming election and warned that a trade deal would be 'much worse' for China if it was negotiated during his second term.
WNU Editor: As mentioned in a previous commentary ....
.... The U.S. economy is booming, there is full employment, and U.S. wages are for the first time in decades increasing. In this environment there is no reason or motivation for the White House to compromise on trade, let alone capitulating completely to Beijing's demands.
The Chinese have very little if any leverage over President Trump, and President Trump is making that very clear to them. But are the Chinese listening? From what I am reading and hearing from China, the answer is no.
More News On President Trump Warning China To Make A Trade Deal
n an unusual move, the Chinese delegation has come clean to the domestic press about Beijing's remaining trade-deal related demands, exposing steep divides that could make it a final deal impossible for Trump, who has repeatedly said he will only accept a "great" deal.
Unsurprisingly, Liu He, the leading Chinese trade negotiator, confirmed what Beijing has intimated time and time again:
That without the complete removal of all trade-war related tariffs, Beijing will not remorse a deal.
WNU Editor: China is demanding (and threatening) the U.S. that when it comes to trade, they want a return to the status quo. It is not going to happen. The U.S. economy is booming, there is full employment, and U.S. wages are for the first time in decades increasing. In this environment there is no reason or motivation for the White House to compromise on trade, let alone capitulating completely to Beijing's demands. As for China, economic growth is decreasing, foreign investment has dropped significantly, technology agreements with other countries and foreign companies have literally stopped, and there is a growing reluctance in Asia and elsewhere to embrace China as a trading partner. So why the intransigence in Beijing? Why the unwillingness to compromise? Why be exposed in a trade war where they have everything to lose? Since the beginning of the Trump Presidency this blog has stated repeatedly that China has miscalculated the impact of President Trump's election, and more specifically, the determination of this President to change the status quo when it comes to trade. We are now seeing the consequences of this miscalculation. I do not know who is advising Chinese President Xi to pursue this path, but he has made a serious mistake, and it is going to damage him politically in China. The question is when will he fold, and when will he make the necessary compromises. My prediction. He will do so before the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. If he choose not to, we will then be entering a new era. Tensions between the U.S. and China will increase, and these differences will be translated into other areas such as border disputes, Taiwan, military build-ups, non-economic threats, and an unwillingness to work together in solving international disputes and crisis that have nothing to do with bilateral U.S. - China relations.The ball is now in Beijing's court.
Amid criticism, Rudy Giuliani announced Friday night he would no longer be traveling to Ukraine in an effort to push the country to pursue an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden's involvement in the 2016 ouster of a controversial prosecutor.
Giuliani, the personal attorney for President Donald Trump, reversed course after Democrats blasted the former New York City mayor for what they viewed as an attempt to court foreign help to stymy the former vice president's run for the Democratic ticket.
WNU Editor: The Democrats and the media have piled on in criticizing this trip when it was first announced. But if the shoe was on the other foot and the story involved President Trump and one of his sons, I would not be surprised if their reaction would be the complete opposite. As to what is my take on the story itself. The Biden family's interests in Ukraine have been documented by this blog and others .... Company In Which Joe Biden's Son Is Director Prepares To Drill Shale Gas In East Ukraine (July 26, 2014). There is a lot there that needs to be investigated and made public. But I also know that it is not going to happen. The new Ukraine government under President Zelenskiy does not want to bring up issues of the past, and they certainly do not want any negative publicity on their parliamentary allies .... which would certainly happen in this case. In this context, Rudy Giuliani made the right decision in cancelling the trip. He would not have been well received. As to the criticisms that President Trump is trying to use the Ukraine government to damage a political rival. All that I can say is where is the criticisms of Hillary Clinton hiring a foreigner (former MI6 agent Christopher Steele), who used his Russian contacts to produce a false dossier that has occupied the media attention for the past two years. Can anyone say "double standard".
More News On Trump Lawyer Rudy Giuliani Cancelling His Trip to Ukraine
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in this still image taken from a video released April 25, 2019. BIDEN CAMPAIGN HANDOUT via REUTERS
Once upon a time, May 1 — May Day — was a day for working-class parades in factory towns. This year, it was a day for Joe Biden, to set off on his third presidential campaign in 32 years, to make news on the stump, not in a working-class venue but in the university town of Iowa City, now the state's Democratic stronghold.
Biden's claims for the presidency rest heavily on foreign policy expertise gained in eight years as vice president and 34 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And, unusually for a Democratic candidate this cycle, he chose to speak about China.
WNU Editor: Former Vice President Biden's views on China are being reported on in China, and they are taking note of his position. Is Beijing being influenced by this, you betcha, Especially when they see polls like this one ..... Americans' support for impeaching Trump rises: Reuters/Ipsos poll (Reuters).
Hassan Rouhani signing a bill into law declaring all U.S. forces in the Middle East terrorists and calling the U.S. government a sponsor of terrorism. April 30, 2019
DUBAI (Reuters) - President Hassan Rouhani called on Saturday for unity among Iran's political factions to overcome conditions which he said may be harder than those during the 1980s war with Iraq, state media reported, as the country faces tightening U.S. sanctions.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Iran's leaders talk with him about giving up their nuclear program and said he could not rule out a military confrontation.U.S.
Trump made the offer as he increased economic and military pressure on Iran, moving to cut off all Iranian oil exports this month while beefing up the U.S. Navy and Air Force presence in the Gulf. Washington also approved a new deployment of Patriot missiles to the Middle East, a U.S. official said on Friday.
(STOCKHOLM) — Swedish prosecutors said Monday they are reopening a rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a month after he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecutions, told a news conference in Stockholm that “there is still a probable cause to suspect that Assange committed a rape.” She added: “It is my assessment that a new questioning of Assange is required.”
Swedish prosecutors filed preliminary charges — a step short of formal charges — against Assange after he visited the country in 2010.
A case of alleged sexual misconduct was dropped in 2017 when the statute of limitations expired. That left a rape allegation, but officials couldn’t pursue it because Assange was living at the embassy and there was no prospect of bringing him to Sweden.
The statute of limitations on that case expires in August 2020.
The case was opened following complaints from two Swedish women who said they were the victims of sex crimes committed by Assange. He has denied the allegations, asserting that they were politically motivated and that the sex was consensual.
The 47-year-old Australian met the women in connection with a lecture in August 2010 in Stockholm. One was involved in organizing an event for Sweden’s center-left Social Democratic Party and offered to host Assange at her apartment. The other was in the audience.
A police officer who heard the women’s accounts decided there was reason to suspect they were victims of sex crimes and handed the case to a prosecutor.
Neither of the alleged victims has been named publicly.
Assange left Sweden for Britain in September 2010. In November that year, a Stockholm court approved a request to detain Assange for questioning.
The Australian secret-spiller took refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden.
He was arrested by British police April 11 after Ecuador revoked his political asylum, accusing him of everything from meddling in the nation’s foreign affairs to poor hygiene.
Currently, Assange is in London’s Belmarsh Prison serving a 50-week sentence for jumping bail in 2012. He is also being held on a U.S. extradition warrant for allegedly hacking into a Pentagon computer.
(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) —Saudi Arabia said Monday two of its oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in attacks that caused “significant damage” to the vessels, one of them as it was en route to pick up Saudi oil to take to the U.S.
Khalid al-Falih’s comments came as the U.S. issued a new warning to sailors and the UAE’s regional allies condemned the reported sabotage Sunday of four ships off the coast of the port city of Fujairah. The announcement came just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at the city’s port.
Emirati officials have declined to elaborate on the nature of the sabotage or say who might have been responsible. However, the reports come as the U.S. has warned ships that “Iran or its proxies” could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and as America is deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter alleged threats from Tehran.
Tensions have risen in the year since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, restoring American sanctions that have pushed Iran’s economy into crisis. Last week, Iran warned it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels in 60 days if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal.
In his statement, al-Falih said the attacks on the two tankers happened at 6 a.m. Sunday.
“One of the two vessels was on its way to be loaded with Saudi crude oil from the port of Ras Tanura, to be delivered to Saudi Aramco’s customers in the United States,” al-Falih said. “Fortunately, the attack didn’t lead to any casualties or oil spill; however, it caused significant damage to the structures of the two vessels.”
Saudi Arabia did not identify the vessels involved, nor did it say whom it suspected of carrying out the alleged sabotage.
Underling the regional risk, the general-secretary of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council described the alleged sabotage as a “serious escalation” in an overnight statement.
“Such irresponsible acts will increase tension and conflicts in the region and expose its peoples to great danger,” Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani said. Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen’s internationally recognized government similarly condemned the alleged sabotage.
A statement Sunday from the UAE’s Foreign Ministry put the ships near the country’s territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, east of the port of Fujairah. It said it was investigating “in cooperation with local and international bodies.” It said there were “no injuries or fatalities on board the vessels” and “no spillage of harmful chemicals or fuel.”
The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which oversees the region, did not immediately offer comment. Emirati officials declined to answer questions from The Associated Press, saying their investigation is ongoing.
Earlier Sunday, Lebanon’s pro-Iran satellite channel Al-Mayadeen, quoting “Gulf sources,” falsely reported that a series of explosions had struck Fujairah’s port. State and semi-official media in Iran picked up the report from Al-Mayadeen, which later published the names of vessels it claimed were involved.
The AP, after speaking to Emirati officials and local witnesses, found the report about explosions at the port to be unsubstantiated.
Fujairah’s port is about 140 kilometers (85 miles) south of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a third of all oil at sea is traded. The facility handles oil for bunkering and shipping, as well as general and bulk cargo. It is seen as strategically located, serving shipping routes in the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent and Africa.
Sunday’s incident comes after the U.S. Maritime Administration, a division of the U.S. Transportation Department, warned Thursday that Iran could target commercial sea traffic.
“Since early May, there is an increased possibility that Iran and/or its regional proxies could take action against U.S. and partner interests, including oil production infrastructure, after recently threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz,” the warning read. “Iran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait or the Persian Gulf.”
Early Sunday, the agency issued a new warning to sailors about the alleged sabotage, while stressing “the incident has not been confirmed.” It urged shippers to exercise caution in the area for the next week.
Publicly available satellite images of the area taken Sunday showed no smoke or fire.
It remains unclear if the previous warning from the U.S. Maritime Administration is the same perceived threat that prompted the White House to order the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers to the region on May 4.
(YANGON, Myanmar) — A Myanmar National Airlines plane made an emergency landing at Mandalay International Airport on Sunday, using only its rear wheels after the front landing gear failed to deploy.
All 82 passengers and seven crew members aboard Flight UB103 from Yangon were declared safe after the Brazilian-made Embraer 190-LR touched down on its rear sets of wheels before the plane’s nose tilted down to scrape the runway, sending off a shower of sparks as it slowed to a stop.
Kyaw San, a spokesman for the airport, said the pilot informed the control tower before landing that he was unable to pull down the nose wheels.
A statement on the airline’s Facebook page explained that the plane’s EICAS — Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System — indicated a failure of the front landing gear to deploy. The pilot tried a backup emergency procedure to pull down the wheels but that was unsuccessful. The aircraft did two fly-bys past the tower for air controllers to check visually whether the wheels had deployed.
The captain followed emergency procedures to dump fuel to reduce the landing weight, and made a safe landing at 9:09 a.m., said the statement.
Video apparently shot by one of the passengers and posted online showed an urgent but orderly evacuation of the passengers and crew. Passengers were seen walking away from the plane across the airfield, several of them smiling.
Flight operations at the airport were temporarily suspended, and allowed to resume after about 2 ½ hours for smaller aircraft. The runways were expected to be reopened for use by larger Boeing and Airbus aircraft by late afternoon.
On Wednesday, a Biman Bangladesh Airlines aircraft skidded off the runway after landing in bad weather at Yangon’s airport, injuring at least 15 passengers and crew but none critically. The fuselage of the plane, a Bombardier Dash 8, was broken in at least two spots, along with the wings.
(NEW DELHI) — Indians voted Sunday in the next-to-last round of a six-week-long national election marked by a highly acrimonious campaign that has seen Prime Minister Narendra Modi blame opposition party chief Rahul Gandhi’s family for the country’s ills.
Sunday’s voting in 59 constituencies, including seven in New Delhi, the capital, completed polling for 483 of 543 seats in the powerful lower house of Parliament. The voting for the remaining 60 seats will be held on May 19, and vote counting begins four days later. India has 900 million eligible voters.
Turnout in the sixth phase of voting on Sunday was 63.3%, according to the Election Commission. There was a drop in people coming out to vote on a hot day, with the temperature soaring to 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) in northern India. The turnout in the first five phases averaged 67%, nearly the same as in 2014 elections that brought Modi to power.
Gandhi, who is president of the Congress party, cast his ballot Sunday in the capital, where he is registered as a voter. Gandhi, however, is contesting from two constituencies — family bastion Amethi in the north and Wayanad in the south — to project an all-India image. He will have to give up one seat if he wins in both places.
Saying it has been a good fight against Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Gandhi told reporters, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi used hatred, we used love. It seems that love is going to win.”
Gandhi’s mother, Sonia Gandhi, a former Congress party president, and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a party general secretary, also cast their votes in the capital.
The voting was largely peaceful but for stray incidents of violence in West Bengal state, where Modi’s BJP is trying to wrest seats from Trinamool Congress, a powerful regional party that is currently governing the state.
Dilip Ghosh, a BJP leader, told reporters that a party candidate, Bharati Ghosh, was prevented by rival groups from entering a voting station in the Keshpur area near Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal. She took refuge in a temple and later in a police station.
The Press Trust of India news agency said some people threw crude bombs and rocks at her motorcade when she tried to visit another polling station in the region. One of her security guards was injured and one vehicle was damaged. Security forces dispersed the attackers using wooden sticks, PTI said.
Opinion polls say that Modi’s BJP continues to be the front-runner in the election, but that it is likely to return with a lesser total of 282 seats. The BJP captured 31% of the votes in 2014, but it won more than half the seats to wrest power from the Congress party in a first-past-the-post electoral system in which a candidate who receives the most votes wins.
Modi is running his campaign like a presidential race, a referendum on his five years of rule with claims of helping the poorest with doles, free health care, providing toilets in their homes and helping women get free or cheap cooking gas cylinders.
At the same time, he is banking on stirring Hindu nationalism by accusing the Congress party of being soft on archrival Pakistan and terrorism, pandering to minority Muslims for votes and pampering Kashmiri separatists.
Opposition parties accuse Modi of digressing from the main issues affecting nearly 70% of the population living in villages and small towns. The opposition is challenging him over India’s 6.1% unemployment rate – the highest in decades – and the economic difficulties of farmers hurt by low crop prices that led many to take their own lives. Opposition officials have also alleged corruption in a deal for India to purchase French fighter jets.
“Modi personally has been the most visible prime minister,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political commentator and biographer of Modi. But he added, “There could be an element of fatigue also. People at the end of it are looking at their bottom line. I think the issues of employment and rural distress are very important.”
Throughout the campaign, Modi has projected himself as a “chowkidar,” or watchman, guarding the country’s interests.
Gandhi, the 48-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, has accused Modi of buying 36 French Rafale fighter jets at an exorbitant price, and helping a private industrialist by promoting him as an offset partner of Dassault, the aircraft manufacturer.
Gandhi adopted a rallying cry of “Chowkidar Chor Hai,” or “the watchman is a thief.”
Stung by the accusation, Modi accused Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi’s late father and a former prime minister, of corruption – an apparent reference to the purchase by India of Swedish Bofors artillery guns in the 1980s. Rajiv Gandhi was accused of receiving kickbacks for the deal, but the allegation was never proved in court.
Modi also is unsparing in his criticism of Rahul Gandhi’s great-grandfather and India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, blaming him for the country’s border disputes with China and Pakistan and a lack of development while he was at the helm from 1947 to 1964.
Rahul Gandhi reacted with a tweet: “Dear Mr Modi, Your recent statements, interviews & videos are giving India the distinct feeling that you’re cracking under pressure.”
He has challenged Modi to a public debate over the Rafale aircraft deal, but Modi has ignored the challenge.
Gandhi’s biggest political triumph since he joined politics 15 years ago was easily his party’s win in assembly elections in December, wrangling power away from Modi’s BJP in the states of Rajasthan, Madya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The opposition has also accused Modi of following a pattern of antagonism against Muslims since his government came to power in 2014.
Modi has adopted a nationalist pitch in trying to win votes from the country’s Hindu majority by projecting a tough stance against Pakistan, India’s Muslim-majority neighbor.
Human Rights Watch reported an increase in attacks by so-called cow vigilantes against Muslims and lower-caste Hindus suspected of illegally transporting cattle or eating beef in recent years. Hindus comprise more than 80% of India’s 1.3 billion people and Muslims nearly 16%.
(JERUSALEM) — As host of this year’s Eurovision, Israel has tried to use the hugely popular song contest to present itself as a tolerant and cosmopolitan country that is winning increased acceptance on the world stage. But despite Israel’s best branding efforts, the kitschy festival is clouded in political conflict and controversy.
Palestinian militants bombarded southern Israel with hundreds of rockets during a bloody round of fighting last week, raising concerns that the contest could be disrupted by violence. The Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel has been urging tourists and artists to stay home. Even an Israeli promotional video for the contest appears to have backfired, drawing accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny.
“There’s definitely more controversy around Israel’s contest than past ones,” said John Kennedy O’Connor, who wrote the official history of Eurovision.
Eurovision debuted in the wake of World War II to heal a divided continent. Over the years, the earnest show of European unity has mushroomed into a campy, over-the-top spectacle that brings together acts from 41 countries, including those with little or no connection to Europe, such as Turkey and Australia. In the final round, TV viewers choose the winner by casting votes via text messages.
Israel earned the right to host after Israeli singer Netta Barzilai carried off last year’s prize with her spunky pop anthem “Toy.” Perhaps anticipating controversy, organizers decided to hold the contest in Tel Aviv — Israel’s freewheeling cultural capital known for its beaches and gay-friendly lifestyle — instead of contested, conservative Jerusalem.
O’Connor described hosting Eurovision as a “golden opportunity” for a small country like Israel trying to sell itself as a holiday destination. “Israel can take control of its image and say ‘look, we’re bringing nations together and putting on a great show,'” he said.
But almost immediately, the Palestinian-led BDS movement, which promotes boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, began calling on performers to pull out of the contest over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
Dozens of European artists, led by former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, signed a letter calling for the contest to be moved elsewhere. Demonstrations erupted outside television studios at a number of national finals. Boycott activists stormed the stage during France’s semi-final round. Iceland’s performers have vowed to leverage their platform to show the “face of the occupation.”
Although the none of the national broadcasters or performers have quit the competition, the BDS movement has drawn international attention to topics that Israel had hoped to avoid.
Adding to tensions, the contest coincides with the day that Palestinians commemorate as the anniversary of their “nakba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced from their homes in the 1948 war that led to the establishment of Israel.
Scores of demonstrations to mark the day of mourning and protest Eurovision are planned throughout the country and in the Palestinian territories. This week, a left-wing Israeli activist group hung a banner on a Tel Aviv highway promoting political tours of the occupied West Bank. Split between a beachfront lifeguard station and an Israeli military watchtower, the billboard reads, “Dare to Dream of Freedom,” a play on this year’s Eurovision motto.
Palestinian factions in Gaza are mobilizing a mass march toward the Israeli border fence on May 15. Last year’s Nakba Day protests in Gaza, following the opening of the U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem, led to the deaths of over 60 Palestinians by Israeli fire. Israel says it is defending its border and accuses Hamas militants of using the crowds as cover for attacks.
Whether it was falling rockets, mounting boycott calls or simply prohibitive ticket and travel costs for some European fans, the Tel Aviv Hotel Association said the contest has attracted far fewer foreign visitors than expected.
The association’s director, Oded Grofman, estimated that hotels would see around 5,000 visitors, well below Eurovision’s forecast of 15,000. Portuguese tourism authorities claimed last year’s songfest in Lisbon drew 90,000 people.
Grofman said the difficulty of travel to Israel, combined with online box office glitches, inflated room rates and steep ticket prices all helped drive down demand. Although last week’s Gaza fighting resulted only in minor cancellations, he said political volatility may have dissuaded all but the most loyal fans.
“All the time we get to the same point…where our being a normal country depends on the choices of Hamas,” said Izhar Cohen, who won Israel’s first Eurovision crown in 1978.
Cohen was set to perform alongside other former winners at a prelude concert in central Israel last week, but the event, which hoped to draw thousands of fans, was postponed until June due to Palestinian rocket fire.
Israel has poured over $5.6 million into Eurovision security, “significantly more” than previous years, according to Sharon Ben-David, the Eurovision spokeswoman for Israel’s public broadcast station. Tens of thousands of police will patrol the contest throughout the week.
Neil Farren, a Eurovision commentator live-blogging contest preparations in Tel Aviv, said the visibly heightened security and briefings on air raid sirens and bomb shelters likely rattled some contenders, who have so far remained tight-lipped about the political situation.
During a testy press conference last week, an Israeli moderator cut off a reporter who tried to ask performers about their fears of Palestinian rocket attacks, insisting business would continue as usual.
A promotional musical video released Friday by the contest’s Israeli television hosts tried to tackle the challenges head-on, poking fun at the country’s stereotypes as a land of war and occupation, religious tensions and exorbitant prices.
But critics say the tongue-and-cheek video went too far, promoting anti-Semitic tropes and glossing over the conflict with the Palestinians. At one point, the host refers to the country’s “lovely beaches,” but the English subtitles say “lovely bitches.” It was not immediately clear whether it was an error or an attempt to make fun of his accent.
The songfest has weathered storms of controversy before, said O’Connor, the Eurovision historian.
When Azerbaijan hosted in 2012, mass protests against government repression erupted at the event. Russia faced boycott calls over its anti-gay laws 10 years ago. Northern Ireland hosted at the height of its violent sectarian violence. Former Soviet republics often try to skirt the contest’s ban on politics through veiled jabs at Russia in their tunes.
Despite the shadows hanging over Israel’s festivities, preparations are moving forward, with rival nations rehearsing their pop acts and Madonna confirming her appearance in defiance of BDS pressure.
“This year,” said O’Connor, “it sounds like it will be very Israeli.”
(MANILA, Philippines) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s name is not on the ballot, but Monday’s midterm elections are seen as a crucial referendum on his rise to power with a brutal crackdown on illegal drugs, unorthodox style and contentious embrace of China.
Nearly 62 million Filipinos have registered to choose among 43,500 candidates vying for about 18,000 congressional and local posts in one of Asia’s most rambunctious democracies.
The most crucial race is for 12 seats in the 24-member Senate, which Duterte wants to fill with allies to bolster his legislative agenda. That includes the return of the death penalty, lowering the age for criminal liability of child offenders and revising the country’s 1987 constitution primarily to allow a shift to a federal form of government, a proposal some critics fear may be a cover to remove term limits.
Opposition aspirants consider the Senate the last bastion of checks and balances given the solid dominance of Duterte’s loyalists in the lower House of Representatives. Last year, opposition senators moved to block proposed bills they feared would undermine civil liberties.
Duterte’s politics and key programs, including his drive against illegal drugs that has left more than 5,200 mostly urban poor suspects dead, have been scrutinized on the campaign trail and defended by close allies running for the Senate, led by his former national Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa, who first enforced the crackdown when the president took office in mid-2016.
Aside from the drug killings, Duterte’s gutter language and what nationalists say is a policy of appeasement toward China that may undermine Philippine territorial claims in the South China Sea, have also been hounded by protests and criticism.
“This is very much a referendum on his three years of very disruptive yet very popular presidency,” Manila-based analyst Richard Heydarian said. “Are we going to affirm or are we going to reject the 2016 elections? Was that an aberration and historical accident that we have to fix, or is this actually the beginning of the kind of new era or new normal?”
A May 3-6 survey by independent pollster Pulse Asia showed 11 of Duterte-backed senatorial candidates and four other aspirants in the winning circle, including only one from the opposition. The survey of 1,800 respondents had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
Duterte himself remains hugely popular, topping ratings surveys with about 70 percent approval.
While the election survey strongly indicated a favorable outcome for Duterte, there was a probability that the result could still change given the considerable number of undecided voters and narrow leads of some candidates.
Divided, cash-strapped and without a unified leader, opposition aspirants are fighting an uphill battle to capture the few number of Senate seats they need to stymie any hostile legislation. Many Filipinos seem more open to authoritarianism due to past failures of liberal leaders, Heydarian said. Such a mindset has helped the family of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to make a political comeback.
Among many dirt-poor Filipinos, however, the concern is day-to-day survival.
“Martial law is scary but we’re more afraid of dying in hunger,” Arturo Veles, a jobless father of six, told The Associated Press.
Wiping away tears, Veles spoke outside his family’s shanty in the humid squalor atop Smokey Mountain, a long-closed dumpsite in Manila’s Tondo slum that remains a symbol of the country’s appalling poverty. His asthma-stricken wife, Agnes, said that not one congressional candidate had treaded the fly-strewn and trash-littered path to their cluster of crumbling huts, probably because of the smell and filth.
Arturo Veles said the poor always suffer the most, indicating he and his wife would not vote for administration candidates. “They only see the poor, those using and selling drugs. That’s the only thing they see, not the depth of our poverty.”
Village guard Jose Mondejar, who lives in a Tondo community heavily festooned with elections streamers and posters, said Duterte’s anti-crime campaign has reduced daytime robberies by drug addicts of passing cargo trucks by about 70 percent in his neighborhood.
“Criminals once even opened fire on our village hall because we were cracking down on them,” he said. “Now you can walk around here without being pestered. Duterte’s campaign has worked.”
White House Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow seemed to contradict President Donald Trump on Sunday, admitting that Trump’s increasing tariffs on Chinese goods will put an economic burden on American consumers and businesses.
Kudlow sat for an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday where he said that both the U.S. and China will suffer consequences from the tariffs. “In fact, both sides will pay,” he said.
In recent days, Trump has characterized his tariffs as being paid for largely by China, expressly saying that the economic rival will be the most affected.
“The tariffs paid to the U.S.A. have had little impact on product cost, mostly borne by China,” the President said in a pair of tweets last week.
For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA of 25% on 50 Billion Dollars of High Tech, and 10% on 200 Billion Dollars of other goods. These payments are partially responsible for our great economic results. The 10% will go up to 25% on Friday. 325 Billions Dollars….
….of additional goods sent to us by China remain untaxed, but will be shortly, at a rate of 25%. The Tariffs paid to the USA have had little impact on product cost, mostly borne by China. The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!
The President additionally said that China primarily foots the bill for the tariffs in a press conference last week.
“Our country can take in $120 billion a year in tariffs, paid for mostly by China, by the way, not by us,” Trump said. “A lot of people try to steer it in a different direction. Ultimately it’s paid for largely by China.”
In the Fox News Sunday interview, Wallace pointedly questioned Kudlow on the facts of how tariffs work.
“But Larry, that isn’t true,” Wallace said about the President’s assertions. “It’s not China that pays the tariffs, it’s the American importers, the American companies that pay what, in effect, is a tax increase and often passes it off to U.S. consumers.”
Kudlow agreed with Wallace, contradicting Trump’s characterization of tariffs.
“Fair enough,” the chief economic advisor said. “In fact, both sides will pay… The Chinese will suffer GDP losses and so forth…”
“[China] may suffer consequences, but it’s U.S. consumers and businesses who pay, correct?” Wallace countered.
“Yes, to some extent,” Kudlow said. “I don’t disagree with that.”
President Trump’s most recent tariff increases on Chinese goods went into effect on Friday, with the administration raising duties on $200 billion of Chinese imports from 10% to 25%. China has said that it would institute “necessary countermeasures” but did not provide additional details.
The newest tariff hike went into effect even as American and Chinese negotiators initiated additional talks in Washington in order to end the trade dispute between the two economic superpowers that has unsettled financial markets around the world.
Those talks ended on Friday and Ludlow told Wallace there are no future talks as of yet planned.
Watch the whole interview between Wallace and Ludlow here:
(WELLINGTON, New Zealand) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the political will to fight climate change seems to be fading at the same time as things are getting worse for those feeling the effects.
Guterres made the comments after arriving in New Zealand, where he spoke to media alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Auckland. Guterres plans to spend three days in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the problems of climate change.
In Christchurch, he will also meet with Muslim leaders following the March 15 slaughter of 51 worshippers by a gunman who attacked two mosques during Friday prayers.
Guterres said he usually visits a Muslim country during the holy month of Ramadan but this year decided to visit Muslims in New Zealand as a tribute to their courage and resilience after the attack.
He said he admired the solidarity New Zealand showed after the attack, and praised Ardern for helping implement new gun control laws and for urging other world leaders and tech companies to find a way to prevent acts of extremism from being shown online, after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook.
Ardern this week plans to travel to Paris, where she and French President Emmanuel Macron will host a meeting seeking to eliminate such acts from being shown online.
Guterres said countries were not living up to their commitments under the 2016 Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“We are not on track to achieve the objectives defined in the Paris Agreement,” Guterres said. “And the paradox is that as things are getting worse on the ground, political will seems to be fading.”
He commended Ardern on last week introducing an ambitious bill that aims to make New Zealand mostly carbon neutral by 2050 while giving some leeway to farmers. The bill is expected to come to a final vote in Parliament later this year.
Guterres said Pacific Island nations are on the front line of climate change.
“We cannot allow for runaway climate change,” he said. “We need to protect the lives of our people and we need to protect our planet.”
Guterres also plans to visit the island nations of Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. In Fiji, he will meet with leaders and senior government officials from the Pacific Islands Forum. His trip comes ahead of the Climate Action Summit that he plans to convene in September in New York.
(PAGO PAGO, American Samoa) — A North Korean cargo ship seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions arrived at the capital of this American territory, where it will undergo inspections.
The Wise Honest was slowly towed to the port of Pago Pago during a cloudy Saturday morning and docked at the main docking section of the port that afternoon.
The trip from Indonesia took about three weeks and American Samoa, in the South Pacific, was chosen because of “its central strategic location,” U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer Amanda Wyrick said.
“We also have a good strong relationship and partnership with the American Samoan government,” Wyrick said. “With that being said, we also already have the resources that are able to ensure the security of the vessel but most importantly the Port of Pago Pago.”
The ship was detained in April 2018 as it traveled toward Indonesia. Justice Department officials announced Thursday the U.S. had seized the ship.
Asked as to how long the ship will be in the territory, Wyrick said the U.S. Department of Justice is “leading the investigation so they will be conducting that. Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the ship will be moved.” But she said the next destination is unknown.
“I do know that Justice Department is going to do the investigation as fast as they can,” Wyrick added.
She said she didn’t have the exact number of U.S. Coast Guard personnel or people from other federal agencies who have traveled to American Samoa for the investigation.
“We have a marine and safety security team here from Honolulu,” Wyrick said. “We’re conducting random patrols, also conducting inspection of the vessel and the Port of Pago Pago, keep an eye on things such as security breaches or vandalization of the ship itself.”
Officials are also making sure the port is protected, she said.
“We especially in the Coast Guard, we understand the importance of the port. It’s a lifeline in getting goods to the islands,” Wyrick said. “So we want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can, to make sure that there’s absolutely no disruption to the flow of commerce coming in and out.”
The U.S. government dispatched an inspection team to the ship before it docked in Pago Pago, she said. Wyrick noted there was an inspection conducted before leaving Indonesia and, because the ship has been at sea for three weeks, “it’s subject to the elements.”
“The inspection of the ship before entering the harbor is to make sure the structure integrity of the boat is still intact. In that way, once we get the thumb’s up, and the green light, and the inspectors deem it safe, then it will enter the port,” Wyrick said.
U.S. officials made the announcement of the ship’s seizure hours after North Korea fired two suspected short-range missiles toward the sea, the second weapons launch in five days and a possible signal that stalled talks over its nuclear weapons program are in trouble.
(Bloomberg) — Iran’s parliament struck a blow for women’s rights by overwhelmingly voting to confer citizenship on children born to an Iranian mother and foreign father.
Currently, children of “mixed marriages” are only eligible for citizenship if their Iranian parent is a man. If the decision is approved by the Guardian Council, a powerful body of senior clerics and judges, then the offspring of mixed marriages would be eligible for citizenship, regardless of whether their mother or father is the Iranian national.
The parliamentary vote was reported Sunday by state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
Such a law would represent a significant development for women’s rights in Iran, with possible implications for the wider region, where many countries don’t give women the right to pass on citizenship to their children if the father is a foreign national.
It would also give tens of thousands of children access to social and health care services.
Iran’s vice president for women’s and family affairs said the current legislation, dating back to 1934, was written at a time “when women were considered chattel.”
“Today, when women have gained dignity, respect and a high level of education and status in the country, on the basis of what logic are we depriving a woman the right to transfer the citizenship that’s in her blood on to her child?” Masoumeh Ebtekar said, according to IRNA.
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