* Figures obtained by the South China Morning Post show the extent of operations carried out in the sensitive waterway between 2007 and April 2019 * Two US destroyers passed through the strait on Sunday and Monday, prompting Beijing to express 'concern' over the transits and describe the issue of Taiwan as 'the most important sensitive issue in Sino-US relations'
United States warships have made 92 trips through the Taiwan Strait in a little over a decade, figures obtained exclusively by the South China Morning Post reveal, offering an unprecedented big-picture view of Washington's movements in the sensitive waterway.
The figures from the US Pacific Fleet show the extent of operations carried out in the waters between 2007 and April 2019.
The US does not have formal relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, but it is treaty-bound to come to its defence in the event of an attack and is its main supplier of arms.
Anti-government protesters march toward the presidential palace during the "March of Torches" to demand the resignation of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, in Tegucigalpa đź“·Orlando Sierra #AFPpic.twitter.com/IRqw3OtonC
No it didn't. It has been designed and mocked up. Much testing to do and funding for that testing and then maybe eventual deployment to some customers. https://t.co/onRIcg6zIo
The Nimitz-class aircraft carriers USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), foreground, and USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) conduct dual aircraft carrier strike group operations in the U.S. 7th Fleet area. (Mass Communication Spec. 3rd Class Jake Greenberg/U.S. Navy)
In March, a report to the Secretary of the Navy warned that the service is preparing for the wrong war, one fought not with bombs and artillery but with terabytes and artificial intelligence.
"We find the Department of the Navy preparing to win some future kinetic battle, while it is losing the current global, counter-force, counter-value, cyber war," the report says.
President Donald Trump, however, this week ordered the Navy to continue preparing for the last war, surprising Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, on Tuesday by reversing his February decision to retire the 21-year-old nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.
North Koreans tour on a vessel on the Yalu river outside Sinuiju, North Korea, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, in Liaoning province, China during the Labor Day holiday, May 2019. REUTERS/Jacky Chen
Britain's biggest defense company BAE Systems announced Thursday that for the first time in aviation history, an aircraft has been maneuvered in flight using supersonically blown air, removing the need for complex movable flight control surfaces.
BAE Systems has disclosed details on the development of MAGMA unmanned air vehicle (UAV) designed and built in collaboration with The University of Manchester to demonstrate novel control technologies.
In a series of ground-breaking flight trials that took place in the skies above north-west Wales, the MAGMA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstrated two innovative flow control technologies which could revolutionize future aircraft design.
On October 30, 1967, a CIA spy-plane soared eighty-four thousand feet over Hanoi in northern Vietnam, traveling faster than a rifle bullet at over three times the speed of sound. A high-resolution camera in the angular black jet's belly recorded over a mile of film footage of the terrain below—including the over 190 Soviet-built S-75 surface-to-air missiles sites.
The aircraft was an A-12 "Oxcart," a smaller, faster single-seat precursor variant of the Air Force's legendary SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.
The jet's driver, Dennis Sullivan had earlier flown one hundred combat missions in an F-80 Starfighter over Korea for the U.S. Air Force. But Sullivan was technically no longer a military pilot—he had been "sheep-dipped," temporarily decommissioned to fly the hi-tech jet on behalf of the CIA. He now sat in the cramped cockpit in a refrigerated space suit, as the friction generated by his plane's Mach 3 speeds heated the cockpit to over five hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
* The UN found North Korean protein intake to be very low, with some families consuming protein only a few times a year
North Korea has cut food rations to 300 grammes a day – less than 11 ounces – the lowest ever for this time of year, and further cuts are likely after the worst harvest in a decade, the United Nations said on Friday.
The UN carried out a food assessment at the request of North Korea from March 29 to April 12. It was granted wide access, including to cooperative farms, rural and urban households, nurseries and food distribution centres.
From Wikipedia: Tank Brigade (Czech: Tanková brigáda) is a 1955 Czechoslovakian film made about the World War II Eastern Front conflict between German and Czechoslovakian forces.
The film is largely a propaganda film, depicting actions of the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Tank Armoured Brigade, with Soviet forces, who both fought their way to the Czechoslovak border, and participated in the Battle of the Dukla Pass.
To hear the Americans explain it, their concern about Venezuela is about democracy, humanitarian crises and the ousting of an increasingly hard-line and ineffective leader in Nicolas Maduro.
Fair enough?
According to the United Nations, about 3.5 million Venezuelans have fled the country in the past few years, representing a 10th of the population.
A full million have flooded into neighbouring Colombia, and the rest have been dispersed across the region, including into the US.
Of those left, 94 per cent live in poverty. Most are malnourished and face chronic shortages of food, water and medicine.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on Friday the possibility of a new accord limiting nuclear arms that could eventually include China in what would be a major deal between the globe's top three atomic powers.
Trump, speaking to reporters as he met in the Oval Office with Peter Pellegrini, prime minister of the Slovak Republic, also said he and Putin discussed efforts to persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, the political discord in Venezuela, and Ukraine during a call that stretched over an hour.
Top members of President Trump's national security team met at the Pentagon on Friday morning to discuss military options for the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, a senior administration official said.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan was joined at the Pentagon by national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to the official.
National security officials also met Wednesday afternoon to discuss the issue.
WNU Editor: From CNN .... Trump: Putin not looking to get involved in Venezuela (CNN). What's my take. Venezuela owes Russia tens of billions in loans, arms sales, and God only knows what else. So yes .... the Kremlin is watching the situation very closely in Venezuela, is supporting as best as it can the Maduro government, and is calculating the cost to Russia's allies in the region (i.e. Cuba) if the Venezuelan government should be replaced. But the question that really needs to be answered is .... "to what extent will the Kremlin protect the Maduro regime"? My answer .... not much from what they are doing now. Sending a few hundred more Russian military contractors to Venezuela is not going to change the situation on the ground, and giving the necessary support to Cuba to help them prop up the Maduro regime also has its limits. The problem in Venezuela is a political one, and absent a political solution the economy will continue to deteriorate, inflation will still remain at two million percent (yes, two million per cent), massive electricity blackouts will be the norm, and oil production will continue to decline. I think Russian President Putin knows that, and he is now positioning himself to extract concessions from the U.S. on what needs to be done. Will he succeed .... we shall soon find out. In the meantime, Venezuela continues to burn .... Venezuela: State steps up repression of protests in the midst of the crisis (Reliefweb).
Jeremy Hunt believes deciding factor will be Nigerian army's 'willingness to work with us'.
Britain is considering stepping up its military efforts to help the Nigerian government defeat Boko Haram, following a rise in terrorist activity in the country's north-east in the past year, Jeremy Hunt has said after a visit to the region.
The UK foreign secretary said on Wednesday that he will be discussing what more the British government can do in terms of aid and military support to combat the terrorist group, warning the crisis had the potential to trigger a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of that in Yemen.
Britain provides £240m in aid to Nigeria, of which £100m goes to the north-east, making it the second-largest donor after the US, and giving the UK a sizeable stake in what happens in the region.
China is interested in joining a nuclear "pact" with US and Russia to reduce the number of nuclear warheads, US President Donald Trump said.
"We're talking about a nuclear agreement, where we make less and they make less, and maybe even get rid of the tremendous firepower we have right now," Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, discussing his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump said he and Putin discussed a possibility of making it a "three-way deal" with China, adding that Beijing "would very much like to be part of that deal." He had brought up the topic in the ongoing trade talks with the Chinese, and they were "more excited about it than [about] trade."
WNU Editor: The main stream media is not reporting this story so far. I am also skeptical that China is "eager" to join into a nuclear pact with the U.S. and Russia. They have stated repeatedly over the years that they are not interested into getting into a nuclear arms agreement with the U.S. and Russia. But if there is a change in policy in Beijing and this report is true, then this is big news.
Had a long and very good conversation with President Putin of Russia. As I have always said, long before the Witch Hunt started, getting along with Russia, China, and everyone is a good thing, not a bad thing....
* White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says Presidents Trump and Putin discussed election meddling and the Mueller report in an early morning call * 'Very, very, briefly it was discussed, essentially in the context of its over, and there was no collusion, which I'm pretty sure both leaders were well aware of' * Call came amid an uprising in Venezuela - which Sanders told White House press was the focus of the conversation that lasted more than an hour * She said it was 'overall a very positive conversation' ran a gamut of topics * Insisted, 'This administration, unlike the previous one, takes election meddling seriously' and is 'looking at ways to actually prevent it from taking place' * Claimed Barack Obama just let it happen, 'knowing about it and doing nothing, and then trying to blame it on the incoming administration'
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says Presidents Trump and Putin discussed election meddling and the Mueller report in an early morning call.
She would not say who initiated the contact that came amid an uprising in Venezuela but confirmed that the two leaders spoke for 'a little over an hour' on Friday and the special counsel investigation was among the topics.
'Very, very, briefly it was discussed, essentially in the context of its over, and there was no collusion, which I'm pretty sure both leaders were well aware of long before this call,' she told White House press.
President Trump described it as a 'long and very good conversation' in a tweet later.
Finally, Mainstream Media is getting involved - too "hot" to avoid. Pulitzer Prize anyone? The New York Times, on front page (finally), "Details effort to spy on Trump Campaign." @foxandfriends This is bigger than WATERGATE, but the reverse!
* President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to declassify 'everything' related to the Obama administration's campaign-year 'spying' on his campaign * Trump blames former FBI Director James Comey for 'probably' leading an effort to win approval for surveillance of one of his campaign foreign policy aides * Carter Page, pictured last October in Los Angeles, was the subject of several intelligence warrants approved by a secretive federal court * The president mocked The New York Times for 'finally' reporting on Obama-era efforts to spy on his campaign * 'This is bigger than WATERGATE, but the reverse!' he tweeted on Friday
President Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that it's likely former FBI Director James Comey led an effort to spy on his campaign in 2016.
And he told a Fox News Channel interviewer that he intends to declassify documents related to controversial surveillance warrants 'pretty soon.'
White House officials have vented both publicly and privately for more than a year about warrants the Obama Justice Department obtained from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to monitor Carter Page, then a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser.
The president signaled Friday morning that a reckoning was near.
'Finally, Mainstream Media is getting involved - too "hot" to avoid,' he tweeted, citing a front-page New York Times story about 'effort to spy on Trump Campaign.'
* North Korea fired several unidentified short-range missiles into the sea Saturday * White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement: 'We are aware of North Korea's actions tonight. We will continue to monitor as necessary' * If confirmed as firing of banned ballistic missiles, it will be the first such launch since the North's November 2017 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile * The firing comes amid a diplomatic breakdown that followed the failed nuclear summit earlier this year between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un * Kim Jong Un said that the North would not test nuclear devices or ICBMs * A short-range missile would not be against his word but could be a way to register his displeasure with Washington * They claim to have ballistic missiles that could reach the US mainland and claim to have developed a nuclear bomb small enough to fit on a long-range missile
North Korea on Saturday fired several unidentified short-range missiles from its eastern coast, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said, a likely sign of Pyongyang's growing frustration at stalled diplomatic talks with Washington over its nuclear arsenal.
Missiles from Hodo peninsula flew for between 70km and 200km before landing in the sea, according to Yonhap News Agency.
South Korean and US authorities are analyzing the details, South Korea's presidential spokeswoman said.
If Saturday's activity in the city of Wonsan around 9am is confirmed as a firing of banned ballistic missiles, it will be the first such launch since the North's November 2017 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. job growth surged in April and the unemployment rate dropped to the lowest in nearly half a century, pointing to sustained strength in economic activity even as last year's massive stimulus from Republican tax cuts and spending increases fades.
The Labor Department's closely watched monthly employment report on Friday showed the greater-than-expected 263,000 new jobs created last month were spread across most industry sectors, and the unemployment rate was just 3.6 percent, the lowest since December 1969.
Still, wage gains did not accelerate as expected, holding at a reading that is consistent with moderate inflation. Moreover, the decline in the unemployment rate was driven largely by the most people leaving the labor force in a year and a half.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) chairs a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "the Justice Department's investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election", that U.S. Attorney General Barr had been scheduled to appear at, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 2, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler gave Attorney General William Barr until Monday morning to give lawmakers access to the full, unredacted version of U.S. Special Counsel Robert' Mueller report on his Russia probe.
Nadler informed Barr of the 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) Monday deadline in a letter on Friday after the attorney general failed to show up at a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Thursday.
"In refusing to comply with congressional oversight requests, the department has repeatedly asserted that Congress's requests do not serve 'legitimate' purposes," Nadler said in the letter.
WNU Editor: The U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler wants access to the grand jury files. Not going to happen. Even I know that it is against the law to release grand jury testimony. And as for accessing the rest of the Mueller report, law-makers can go now and read it (but only two have) .... Just 2 lawmakers have seen less-redacted Mueller report (Politico). So what is next? Congress wants former Special Counsel Mueller to show up, and hope that he can give them something to continue the process of indictment/impeachment. They are also hoping to question former White House counsel Don McGahn,. I think in both cases the Democrats are going to be disappointed.
* White House lawyer Emmet Flood sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr accusing special counsel Robert Mueller of making political statement in his report on Russia and President Donald Trump. * Flood, who joined the White House legal team in May 2018, worked as an impeachment attorney for President Bill Clinton. * Flood's five-page letter to Barr claimed that the report on Mueller's far-reaching probe should not be legitimized or taken as precedent, and argued that Trump has retained his executive privilege rights related to the probe.
White House lawyer Emmet Flood sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr accusing special counsel Robert Mueller of making "political statements" in his report on Russia and President Donald Trump.
Flood's five-page letter to Barr claimed that the report on Mueller's far-reaching probe should not be legitimized or taken as precedent, and argued that Trump has retained his executive privilege rights related to the probe.
WNU Editor: The full letter from White House counsel Emmet Flood to Attorney General Barr can be read here, and IMHO it is a must read .... Read the full letter from White House counsel Emmet Flood to AG Barr (NBC). What's my take. In hindsight Robert Mueller should not have stacked his team entirely with people who are/were staunch Democrat supporters with a long history of partisan politics. It would have deflected the flood of criticisms that is (and will) now be coming in. As for the significance of this letter. The White House is shifting into a very aggressive approach, and is telegraphing that the President will now start using his powers of executive privilege. But what strikes me about this letter was its criticisms of top law enforcement officials, and how they behaved in 2016/2017. I would not be surprised if these former officials are going to be targeted for investigation, if not already. I also expect the White House will be declassifying all relevant information and files on what happened during this period, and when that happens a lot of people are going to need to explain themselves. Bottom line. Prepare for the floodgates to open of documents in the coming weeks/months.
More News On The White House Counsel Officially Responding To The Mueller Report
After the New York Times revealed that the FBI sent a second spy to infiltrate the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election - a 'honeypot' who went by the name of Azra Turk who posed as a research assistant to the first spy they sent in, Stefan Halper - the rest of the MSM has been virtually silent.
Both the Washington Post and CNN - which breathlessly reported on their peers' anonymously-sourced anti-Trump propaganda for two years - have somehow failed to write a single article mentioning Azra Turk.
President Barack Obama shakes hands with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss transition plans in the White House Oval Office in Washington. REUTERS
* The new edition of 'Obama: The Call Of History' by New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker lays bare Obama's fury over the election results * The book was originally released in July 2017 but has been updated with extensive new reporting - and the run through of election day is electrifying * Obama arrogantly thought there was 'no way Americans would turn on him' even though Clinton was far from perfect * He likened himself to Michael Corleone in the Godfather and said he was handing power over to somebody who would destroy his legacy
Barack Obama admitted 'this stings' after the 2016 election result and spent the night watching the movie Dr Strange to try and distract himself, a new book claims.
The former president went from being confident that Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump to seeing it as a 'personal insult' that she lost.
Obama could not believe the American people had 'turned on him' for a man he had written off as a 'cartoon'.
As the dust settled Obama told his family that 'this hurts' and blamed Clinton who 'brought many of her troubles on herself' and ran a 'scripted, soulless campaign'.
The eye-popping details are in the new edition of 'Obama: The Call Of History' by New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker.
WNU Editor: Former President Obama's assessment on how Hillary Clinton ran her campaign is right. She did lack energy and focus in the states that would have made a difference in the 2016 campaign. As for the rest .... it is no secret that the former President despises the current President, and I suspect that it is going to get worse as his legacy continues to be dismantled by President Trump.
More News On Former President Obama's Reaction To The 2016 Election Win Of President Trump
WASHINGTON (CNN)With Robert Mueller's investigation finished, Donald Trump's approval rating stands at its highest level since April 2017 in a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, as the share who say Democrats in Congress are doing too much to investigate the President rises 6 points.
Trump's approval rating remains largely negative in the new poll -- 52% disapprove and 43% approve -- but that approval figure is the highest -- by one point -- since a CNN poll completed around the 100-day mark of his time in office. At the same time, the share who say they strongly approve of the way the President is handling his job (35%) is at its highest level ever in CNN's polling.
WNU Editor: The CNN poll result that states a majority of Americans want Congress to investigate the origins of the Justice Department's inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election is buried in the third to last paragraph of this report ....
.... In one point of partisan agreement over Mueller's work, 69% think Congress ought to investigate the origins of the Justice Department's inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including 76% of Democrats, 69% of independents and 62% of Republicans.
The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a research associate with the project. The Nuclear Notebook column has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. This issue's column examines the US nuclear arsenal, which remained roughly unchanged in the last year, with the Department of Defense maintaining an estimated stockpile of nearly 3,800 warheads. Most of these warheads are not deployed; approximately 2,050 warheads are held in reserve and approximately 2,385 retired warheads are awaiting dismantlement, giving a total inventory of approximately 6,185 nuclear warheads. Of the approximately 1,750 warheads that are deployed, roughly 1,300 are on ballistic missiles, 300 at strategic bomber bases in the United States, with another 150 tactical bombs deployed at European bases.
EUROPEAN Commission hopeful Guy Verhofstadt admitted the European Union "doesn't exist" as he revealed his chilling plan for the Brussels bloc for the next five years.
EUROPEAN Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has made an extraordinary claim that EU nations never thank him. The arch-European Unionist, who has been hugely sceptical of Brtiain's Brexit decision, was being interviewed by a Polish newspaper when he blurted out the nation had never thanked him for helping the Poles pocket €175 BILLION in EU funding.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea on Saturday fired several unidentified short-range projectiles into the sea off its eastern coast, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said, a likely sign of Pyongyang’s growing frustration at stalled diplomatic talks with Washington meant to provide coveted sanctions relief in return for nuclear disarmament.
The South initially reported a single missile was fired, but later issued a statement that said “several projectiles” had been launched and that they flew up to 200 kilometers (125 miles) before splashing into the sea toward the northeast.
South Korea’s military has bolstered its surveillance in case there are additional weapons launches, and South Korean and U.S. authorities are analyzing the details. If it’s confirmed that the North fired banned ballistic missiles, it will be the first such launch since the North’s November 2017 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. That year saw a string of increasingly powerful weapons tests from the North and a belligerent response from President Donald Trump that had many in the region fearing war.
The firing Saturday comes amid a diplomatic breakdown that has followed the failed summit earlier this year between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the North’s pursuit of nuclear bombs that can accurately target the U.S. mainland. Experts believe that the North has viable shorter range nuclear armed missiles but still needs more tests to perfect its longer-range weapons.
During the diplomacy that followed the North’s weapons tests of 2017, Kim Jong Un said that the North would not test nuclear devices or ICBMs.
These short-range projectiles don’t appear to violate that self-imposed moratorium, and may instead be a way to register Kim’s displeasure with Washington and the state of talks meant to provide sanctions relief for disarmament without having the diplomacy collapse.
Self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaido gambled this week to try to force the ouster of de facto Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, calling on the Venezuelan people to join him in mass protests and military officials to defect to his side. People showed up to protest—both for and against Maduro—but the military defections Guaido hoped for never quite materialized.
Why It Matters:
When it comes to politics, timing is everything. Guaido had real momentum in January when he announced that Maduro’s electoral win was rigged and illegitimate (correct on both counts), and that Venezuela’s constitution empowered the head of the country’s parliament (read: him) to serve as president until free and fair elections could be held. The US backed Guaido immediately, a diplomatic victory which opened the door for other countries to follow suit—more than 50 countries now recognize Guaido as the country’s rightful leader. But none of those countries were willing to do much beyond sanctions and humanitarian aid. In fact, the one country that seemed committed to sending in military assistance of any kind was Russia, which had invested heavily in the Maduro regime. That effectively meant that while Guaido was an international cause celebre, Maduro was the one who controlled the country’s military and security forces on the ground. And without control of those forces, Guaido was just another Venezuelan opposition leader.
Guaido has thus spent the last three months trying to peel military supporters away from Maduro. At the beginning of this week, it seemed like he may have actually pulled it off—in a video featuring Leopoldo Lopez, the opposition leader and Guaido’s political mentor who had been under house arrest for the last two years—Guaido announced that the final phase of “Operation Liberty” had commenced, and called for the Venezuelan people to join him in protests to force the ouster of Maduro once and for all. Lopez was released by dissident military officials that had switched loyalties to Guaido, a sign that Guaido was gaining traction among the country’s security apparatus. Combined with the strong rhetoric from US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, there was genuine hope that this was the beginning of the end for Maduro. But three key officials that the opposition hoped would switch to their side—the country’s defense minister, the chief judge of the Supreme Court and the head of Maduro’s presidential guard—remained loyal to Maduro. Maduro thus ends the week in a much stronger position than when he started it, and Guaido and Venezuela’s opposition are now on the backfoot.
What Happens Next:
Guaido just suffered his most significant defeat since storming onto the world stage a few months ago, and it’s not clear where he goes from here. Guaido needs to keep both the Venezuelan public as well as the international community engaged and on his side as developments in the country unfold, but the failed attempt to force matters to a head significantly hampers his ability to do both. Guaido managed to cobble together support from certain members of the National Guard and Venezuela’s Secret Service, but was unable to show that he flipped any members of the armed forces with any operational relevance or with significant troops under their command. It’s still unclear whether Guaido had bad intelligence, supposed-defectors got cold feet, or if Guaido just hoped that a daring gambit would swing things in his favor.
But now Maduro is emboldened. What he does with that remains to be seen—he could go after Guaido and try to get him arrested or exiled, but that runs the risk of drawing the ire of the international community and reviving support for Guaido. His smartest move might be to just let Guaido spin his wheels and wait for fractures in the country’s opposition to emerge as they argue over next steps.
Guaido’s tough week also shows the limitations of US support, and makes US military intervention even more unlikely that it was before. Despite the strong rhetoric from Bolton and Pompeo, President Donald Trump has never been a fan of foreign interventions, and the prospect of taking on a Maduro who just showed that he still commands the loyalty of Venezuela’s security forces is unlikely to change that.
The Key Quote That Sums It All Up:
“I worry that this kind of semi-regular raising of expectations to very high levels wears — and makes the kind of internal pressure that needs to build harder to happen,” –Daniel Resrepo, NSC Latin America Advisor in the Obama administration.
The One Thing to Read About It:
Pompeo claims that Maduro was about to leave Venezuela this week until the Russians told him to stay put, which the Russians denied. To understand why Russians hold so much sway from half a world away, read this piece I put together a few weeks ago for Time.
The One Thing to Avoid Saying About It:
…and the winner of this political drama gets to preside over a sinking Venezuela. Not much of a prize if we’re being honest.
Caster Semenya was defiant in every way at what very well could be her last 800 meter race.
Her raised fist at the start. Her unstoppable victory. And with her reply Friday to the big question of whether she will now submit to new testosterone regulations in track and field and take hormone-reducing medication.
“Hell no,” the Olympic champion from South Africa said.
Semenya responded to her defeat in a landmark court case against track and field’s governing body two days earlier with a resounding win in a place where she’s done nothing but win the last four years — over two laps of the track.
She won the 800 meters at the opening Diamond League meeting of the season in Doha, Qatar, with a meet record of 1 minute, 54.98 seconds. It was her fourth-fastest time ever. The only person ahead of her at any time during the race was the pacemaker.
Semenya’s nearest challenger, the Olympic silver medalist Francine Niyonsaba, was nearly three seconds and about 20 meters behind her — barely in the picture. Ajee Wilson of the United States was third.
It was Semenya’s first 800 meter race this year and first since losing her case against the IAAF this week.
“Actions speak louder than words,” Semenya told the BBC. “When you are a great champion, you always deliver.”
But Semenya’s four-year dominance over two laps — Friday’s win was her 30th straight in the 800 continuing a run that started in late 2015 — may now be at an end.
Ended not by another competitor, but by new regulations set to come into effect Wednesday. They require the South African star and other female athletes with high levels of natural testosterone to medically lower them to be eligible to compete in events ranging from 400 meters to the mile.
Semenya failed to overturn those rules in her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Now, her career appears to be at a crossroads: Does she take medication to lower her testosterone? The medication will likely inhibit her athletic performance and could blunt her dominance. Or does she switch events and run in long-distance races not affected by the regulations?
She was emphatic when she told reporters after Friday’s race that she wouldn’t take the medication.
“That’s an illegal method,” she said.
But Semenya also didn’t give a clear idea of what she would do next. She said she wouldn’t move up to the 5,000 meters and she definitely wouldn’t retire.
“God has decided my career, God will end my career,” she said in the BBC interview. “No man, or any other human, can stop me from running. How am I going to retire when I’m 28? I still feel young, energetic. I still have 10 years or more in athletics.
“It doesn’t matter how I’m going to do it. What matters is I’ll still be here. I am never going anywhere.”
Semenya’s comments may foreshadow an appeal against the CAS ruling, aimed first at allowing Semenya to defend her 800 title at the world championships, also in Doha, in September and October while not taking the hormone-suppressing drugs.
But, if she keeps her promise not to lower her testosterone, there is a chance that Friday was the last time that Semenya runs in the 800, where she is a double Olympic and a three-time world champion, and arguably the best female athlete to run the distance in 40 years.
Her career, however, seems destined to be overshadowed by the testosterone debate, which has the potential for implications far beyond her own results.
Semenya gave away little on the track to indicate it might be her last race at the distance. She raised her right fist when announcers introduced her before the race.
She was presented with a bunch of flowers and tossed them to the crowd at the end. She then gave a thumbs-up to fans, flashed a brief smile, and walked off the track.
The Scientology cruise ship that was quarantined in St. Lucia is now sailing for the Dutch Caribbean island Curaçao, and officials say that they’re currently preparing for what’s next.
The vessel, Freewinds, is scheduled to arrive at its homeport in Curaçao on Saturday morning, Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth, the national epidemiologist for the island of 160,000 people, tells TIME.
Freewinds set sail from St. Lucia on Thursday night, St. Lucia officials say.
St. Lucia officials refused to allow the ship’s crew or passengers to disembark when the ship arrived at the island on Tuesday because the country had received reports that a female crew member was diagnosed with measles, the St. Lucia health department said in a statement. At the request of the ship’s doctor, the island provided the vessel with 100 measles vaccines. Although the vessel was placed under quarantine, St. Lucia officials said that the ship was permitted to leave at any time.
Gerstenbluth says that Curaçao will consider permitting people who are immune to the disease to disembark in Curaçao, which includes people who are vaccinated or have previously contracted the illness. The infected passenger may have been contagious until Tuesday, Gerstenbluth says, and passengers without immunity will need to be monitored for three weeks––until May 21. The ship’s doctor is compiling medical records for everyone aboard the ship, and Curaçao and other health agencies will evaluate the evidence when the vessel arrives on the island tomorrow.
“Tomorrow we will carry out our own assessment, because people might say they’ve been vaccinated just to get off board,” Gerstenbluth says.
Gerstenbluth says that while he does not consider measles to be an especially serious illness, Curaçao will take steps to ensure that the virus does not spread internationally.
“This is more about our commitment to the international community to contain this,” Gerstenbluth says. “We are very keen on trying to limit the spread of the disease.”
He adds that health officials are also looking into the possibility that passengers or local people may have disembarked from the ship in Aruba or Curaçao before it reached St. Lucia this week.
The vessel appears to belong to the Church of Scientology, which has not responded to requests for comment. Scientology leaders say that the church does not have an official position on vaccination. The church’s website emphasizes the “harmful effects of drugs, toxins and other chemicals that lodge in the body and create a biochemical barrier to spiritual well-being.”
As the number of children inoculated for measles has fallen, the United States has been experiencing a growing number of outbreaks. As of April 26, there have been 704 measles cases in 22 states this year––the greatest number of cases in the U.S. since 1994.
Experts say that the anti-vaccination movement, which has often spread information that defies scientific consensus, has damaged public trust in a medical treatment that scientists overwhelmingly consider to be very safe and a highly effective way to protect people from disease.
(KINSHASA, Congo) — More than 1,000 people have died from an Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that started in August, the country’s health minister said Friday, as attacks on treatment centers and health workers undermine efforts to contain the disease.
Health Minister Oly Ilunga told The Associated Press that four deaths in the outbreak’s epicenter of Katwa helped push the death toll to 1,008. Two more deaths were reported in Butembo.
The outbreak that was declared in eastern Congo in August is already the second deadliest in history, and efforts to control it have been complicated by a volatile security situation and deep community mistrust in eastern Congo.
Ebola treatment centers have come under repeated attack, and a Cameroonian epidemiologist working with WHO was killed last month during an assault on a hospital in Butembo city at the outbreak’s epicenter. Another attack on Thursday in Butembo was repelled, said Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief.
Insecurity has become a “major impediment” to efforts to control the Ebola outbreak, Ryan told reporters in Geneva earlier Friday.
He said 119 attacks have been recorded since January, 42 of them directly against health facilities, with 85 health workers wounded or killed. Dozens of rebel groups operate in the region, and community rejection of health workers has been driven in part by political rivalries, he said.
“Every time we have managed to regain control over the virus and contain its spread, we have suffered major, major security events,” Ryan said. “We are anticipating a scenario of continued intense transmission” of the disease.
The 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa’s Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia brought worldwide attention as it killed more than 11,000 people.
WHO has maintained that this Ebola outbreak is geographically contained even as the number of cases rises in a dense, highly mobile population near the border with Uganda and Rwanda.
More than 109,000 people have received an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine and Ryan said authorities are looking at potentially introducing another one.
He also said funding for Ebola containment efforts faces an “urgent, critical gap” of some $54 million, and he called for more help from Congo and the world.
(LONDON) — Britain’s dominant political parties took a hammering in local elections as Brexit-weary voters expressed frustration over the country’s stalled departure from the European Union, according to updated results Friday.
Almost three years after U.K. voters narrowly decided in a referendum to leave the EU, the date and terms of Brexit remain uncertain following months of gridlock in Parliament.
The results from Thursday’s local elections suggested voters blamed both the governing Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party for the impasse.
With tallies in from almost all of the 259 local authorities that had positions up for grabs, the Conservatives had dropped more than 1,000 seats, about one-quarter of the ones it held.
Left-of-center Labour Party, which had hoped to increase the number of members serving as local councilors, lost more than 70 positions.
The Conservatives previously had members filling about 60 percent of the more than 8,000 seats that were contested in local races in England and Northern Ireland.
Elections didn’t take place in London, Scotland or Wales.
Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May said the elections as a whole carried a “simple message” for both the Conservative and Labour parties: “Just get on and deliver Brexit.”
An audience member at a Conservative conference in Wales had a blunter message. The party member heckled May, shouting “Why don’t you resign? We don’t want you.”
The Conservatives and Labour are bracing for worse results in the European Parliament elections in three weeks.
Britain was due to have left the EU well before the European vote, but Brexit was postponed until Oct. 31 because May was unable to get lawmakers to approve her divorce deal with the EU.
In truth, the message sent by voters was loud but far from clear. With the country still split over leaving the EU, the rejection of both main parties reflected frustration from both pro-Brexit voters and supporters of Britain’s EU membership.
“The people that voted to remain blame us for leaving and the people that voted to leave blame us because we haven’t left yet,” said Conservative politician Tim Warren, who lost his seat on Bath and North East Somerset Council in southwest England.
“I think they want to punish us for a lack of action in government,” Warren said.
Many Labour members blamed the party’s poor showing on its ambivalent position on Brexit. The party supports the decision to leave the bloc — to the frustration of many Labour members and lawmakers, who are largely pro-EU — but opposes May’s divorce deal.
Talks between Labour and May’s government on finding a compromise have so far failed to reach agreement.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said voters’ message “seems to be ‘a plague on both your houses’ to the Conservatives and the Labour Party, who they see as a block on finding some sort of resolution to Brexit.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said there was now a “huge impetus” for every lawmaker to break the logjam.
“An arrangement has to be made. A deal has to be done. Parliament has to resolve this issue,” Corbyn said Friday.
The party with the biggest surge was the centrist, pro-EU Liberal Democrats, which gained more than 500 council seats to double its total. The Green Party and independents also made gains in the races that focused on local issues such as garbage collection.
“Voters have sent a clear message that they no longer have confidence in the Conservatives, but they are also refusing to reward Labour while the party prevaricates on the big issue of the day: Brexit,” said Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable.
In the May 23 elections for the EU parliament, Britain’s biggest parties face additional opposition from new forces on the political scene — the anti-EU Brexit Party and the pro-European Change UK. Neither ran in Thursday’s local elections.
The discovery of a beluga whale in Norwegian waters that may or may not be working for the Russian navy has captured worldwide attention.
Norwegian fisherman spotted the marine mammal on Monday wearing a GoPro camera harness with a label on the inside, written in English, “Equipment of St. Petersburg.”
The find alarmed Norwegian officials and led to speculation that the mammal may have been trained to spy for Russia. There is “great reason to believe” the whale was being used by the Russian navy, Martin Niuw from the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, told the Norwegian broadcaster NRT. There is not yet conclusive evidence about where the whale is from, but that explanation for the whale’s origin is “entirely plausible,” says Gervase Phillips, a history lecturer who studies the military use of animals at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The Russian defense ministry has denied having a program that uses marine mammals, the Guardian reported.
That hasn’t stopped locals from joking that the whale has since “defected” to Norway; it is refusing to stray more than a few miles from the northern harbor where it was discovered.
If the whale is indeed a Russian spy, as speculated in headlines around the world, it would not be the first marine mammal drafted into military service. Here’s a history of whales, dolphins and other creatures that have been trained and deployed by militaries in Russia and around the world.
The Russian navy’s history of using dolphins, whales and seals
In the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet authorities reportedly trained beluga wales, dolphins, sea lions and fur seals to search for underwater mines and other objects.
Lev Mukhametov, a leading researcher on ecology and evolution at the Russian Academy of Sciences told Gazeta, a popular online Russian new site, that he saw how bottlenose dolphins were used during Soviet times to “guard” the entrance to the bay of Sevastopol, the city in Crimea that was home to the Soviet Black Sea fleet. If a diver passed underwater “through a protected area” then dolphins would “signal” to a coastal station using echolocation––high frequency clicking sounds, Mukhametov said.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, marine mammal training was discontinued and, according to a 2000 BBC report, the guard dolphins were sold to Iran. But in 2012 the program resumed in Ukraine, according to a report from Russia’s state-backed news outlet RIA Novosti. In 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea, the dolphins came under the control of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Russian military then launched a new program to train combat dolphins and seals for the Russian navy. As of 2016, Russia began searching for new recruits, offering $24,000 for five bottlenose dolphins, according to the Washington Post.
In 2017, Russia’s Zvezda TV channel, which is run by the Russian Ministry of Defense, reported that Russia’s “underwater special forces” were taking on “new fighters”––ringed seals, sea hares, harp seals, five bottlenose dolphins––and beluga whales. They will guard the entrances to naval bases, search for underwater mines, help divers and, “if necessary,” kill any “aliens that invade their territory,” according to Zvezda.
How the U.S. and allies used animals in the military
Armed forced around the world have a long history of using animals to perform military services, as well. The U.S. Navy has trained dolphins and sea lions since the Vietnam War in its marine mammal program. Phillips, the historian who studies animals in the military, says the program has “long been shrouded in secrecy” and many details were not known until 1992, when information was leaked.
America’s current Navy animal service, made up of bottle-nosed dolphins and California sea lions at a naval base in San Diego, Calif., patrols restricted waters and searches for objects. The program has drawn criticism from animal rights advocates for years, who consider it animal abuse.
Sandy Huffaker—Getty ImagesTrainer Jen Patten calms a Navy Dolphin before it is transported to a boat before a training exercise at Naval Base Pt. Loma on April 12, 2007 in San Diego, California.
In Britain, the navy employed sea lions during World War II to detect underwater mines, but Phillips says the operation was unsuccessful as the creatures were “too slow, and easily distracted.”
During World War I the British army also tried to train seagulls to defecate on the periscopes of German U-boat, blinding submarine crews.
Pen and Sword Books—UIG via Getty ImagesSoldier letting a carrier bird go during World War I.Print Collector—Getty ImagesMessenger pigeons being released at the front line during World War I in 1915.
But pigeons, who were trained carry coded messages from the front-lines, proved more useful. With a maximum speed of 60 miles per hour, they could quickly fly up and out of range of sniper fire. By 1918 the British Army had 20,000 birds available for duty.
Hulton Archive—Getty ImagesA crowd of onlookers watches Major Richardson with his bloodhounds in London on April 18,1914. They assisted the British Red Cross in locating wounded soldiers on the battlefields of World War I.
This is in addition to the longtime use of dogs in militaries worldwide. The military canine’s role expanded in the 20th century, starting with World War II, to detect mines and explosives. “We simply don’t have anything as useful as their noses. Modern warfare is still reliant on using intelligent, sensitive creatures,” says Phillips.
The threat in French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks last week was easy to miss. But if he follows through, its effects wouldn’t be.
More than 40 minutes into a meandering press conference, Macron reiterated his goal to put fighting climate change at the center of his government’s policies as well as those of the European Union, calling for a “carbon tax on borders” for the bloc.
“The success of this transition goes through our European commitment, our capacity to defend at the European level the need to achieve a carbon price,” he said, according to a translation.
Macron did not get into specifics, but such a measure would likely mean a carbon tax in E.U. member countries coupled with a fee on imports from non-E.U. countries that don’t have their own carbon tax or another form of carbon pricing.
That would borrow a trick from President Donald Trump, who has revived the use of tariffs to punish foreign countries. But instead of using the import fee to try to gain competitive advantage in certain industries the E.U. would be using it to fight climate change, which Trump repeatedly called “a hoax” while campaigning for president. If the European Union were to follow through on the plan, American products would instantly become less competitive globally.
There are other risks for U.S. manufacturers too. Since 2005, the European Union has experimented with a carbon pricing scheme while many American businesses have been unencumbered by similar restrictions. If E.U. standards get tougher, U.S. manufacturers risk falling behind their counterparts in other countries, which have already been pushed toward cleaner processes domestically.
Some warn that the transition to a greener global economy could end up leaving the U.S. behind. “This market is going to be the dominant market of the world for the rest of this century,” says John Kerry, the former U.S. Secretary of State. “If in the United States is not a commanding position in it our economy will suffer tremendously.”
There are a variety of ways Macron’s policy could be structured, but it would almost certainly leave U.S. companies vulnerable. The U.S. is the only country that is not committed to implementing the Paris Agreement, one measure that could be used to determine which countries would face a tax on imports. More than 40 countries, including China, have some national form of carbon pricing, another potential tax determinant.
“Putting this forward currently would single out the U.S.” says Cécile Toubeau, a director at the European Federation for Transport & Environment, an environmental nonprofit.
The problem is almost entirely of Trump’s own making. Since taking office, he hasn’t just pulled the U.S. back from the international order on climate change and trade, he has sought to rip them up entirely. In 2017, Trump announced that the U.S. would leave the Paris Agreement when it is eligible to do so next year. That global deal, a linchpin of international climate action, is widely popular with nearly 200 countries agreeing to it in 2015. More broadly, Trump has threatened countries on three continents, including several key U.S. trading partners, with tariffs and openly questioned key U.S. defense alliances.
The prospect of a European border carbon tax is an ironic development. Trump and many Republicans in Washington argue that measures like the Paris Agreement are too costly and leave the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell explained his decision to keep the Senate from voting on a measure to keep the U.S. in the Paris Agreement in exactly those terms.
“Tons of red tape and real economic damage for zero measurable effect,” he said on the Senate floor.
Leaders like McConnell may be reluctant to bet on the prospect of a hostile move like a European border carbon adjustment. Indeed, most countries have largely avoided dramatic retaliation against Trump’s actions, but that doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. Thus far such a policy has remained on the back burner as the key countries that could implement such a measure, namely European countries and Canada, have sought to mollify the U.S. and avoid an all-out trade war, but experts say that circumstances could change if relations with the U.S. diminish further.
“What this Administration has done is really eroded the unspoken bond that created multilateralism,” says Aaron Cosbey, a development economist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development think tank. “When you erode those you’ve thrown open the door open for other countries to act similarly. And let’s face it: border carbon adjustment is a rejection of multilateralism.”
Macron’s proposal is not new. For more than a decade, economists and development experts have looked at it as a way for countries to force cross-border action on climate change. At first, many assumed it would be the U.S. using such a measure to cajole other countries to fight climate change.
Many barriers remain before the European Union could implement such a policy. It’s a question of years not months, says Cosbey. To maximize the policy’s effectiveness, leaders would likely seek to get other countries to agree to participate. And policymakers would need to craft the rules carefully to avoid running afoul of World Trade Organization regulations that bar actions which single out a specific country.
“This will take time,” Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, said this week of a carbon tax, according to a FinancialTimes report.
(WELLINGTON, New Zealand) — A Turkish man wounded in the Christchurch mosque shootings seven weeks ago died late Thursday in Christchurch Hospital, raising the death toll to 51, authorities in New Zealand and Turkey confirmed. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Friday the sad news would be felt across both countries.
“This man has been in intensive care since the attack,” Ardern said in a statement. “We have all been hoping for the best, however he has now succumbed to the injuries sustained in the shooting at the Al Noor mosque.”
Relations between Turkey and New Zealand have been strained since the March 15 attack after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed clips from the gunman’s livestreamed footage at his election campaign rallies to denounce hatred against Islam. New Zealand authorities have banned the video, and anybody caught sharing it in New Zealand can face up to 14 years in prison.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters traveled to Turkey a week after the attacks to try to smooth relations. He spoke at an emergency session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s executive committee called by Turkey to combat prejudice against Muslims in the wake of the attacks.http://time.com/5582877/new-zealand-shoo…death-toll-rises/
On Thursday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Twitter: “Unfortunately, we have lost our citizen Zekeriya Tuyan who was seriously wounded in the treacherous terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand.” The state-run Anadolu Agency said the father of two was wounded in the back and the leg and died after undergoing surgery. New Zealand police said the man was 46. He was one of three Turkish citizens wounded in the attack.
Ardern said the man was the second victim to die while in the hospital, after one other victim was unable to be resuscitated on arrival at Christchurch Hospital on the day of the attacks. She said that of the 49 men, women and children who were shot and wounded in the attacks and taken to hospitals, nine remained hospitalized and all of them were in a stable condition.
Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian white supremacist, has been charged with 50 counts of murder and 39 counts of attempted murder in the attacks, although those charges could be amended to reflect the increased death toll. He is next due in court on June 14.
(NICOSIA, Cyprus) — The president of Cyprus fired the small island nation’s police chief Friday, saying botched missing person investigations might have allowed a self-confessed serial killer to claim more victims.
President Nicos Anastasiades’ action came the day after Cyprus’ justice minister resigned amid intensifying criticism of police for mistakes in following up on the disappearances of some of the seven foreign women and girls a 35-year-old army captain has told authorities he killed.
In a letter to Police Chief Zacharias Chrysostomou, Anastasiades said the head of any organization must take responsibility for the actions of subordinates.
The “apparent negligence or failure of police personnel to carry out an investigation on missing persons” possibly contributed to the “abhorrent crimes that have shaken Cypriot society,” the president wrote.
The suspect told investigators he disposed of his victims’ bodies in an abandoned mineshaft, a poisonous lake and a pit at a military firing range. The oldest killing was in 2016.
Immigrant rights activists have accused the police force of not investigating when foreign workers are reported missing. The victims include three Filipino women and the 6-year-old daughter of one of them, a Romanian mother and daughter, and a woman believed to be from Nepal.
Earlier Friday, Anastasiades met diplomats from the Philippines, Vietnam, India and Sri Lanka to “offer an apology on behalf of the state and the Cypriot people” about the crimes, government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said.
Prodromou said the president told the representatives that foreign worker complaints about rights and living conditions will be handled by the Ombudsman’s Office.
The diplomats acknowledged the killings as an “isolated incident” that doesn’t correspond with the generally good experiences in Cyprus of workers from their countries, he said.
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Mumbai: Superstar Aamir Khan's next "Laal Singh Chaddha" will hit the theatres on Christmas 2020, Viacom18 Studios announced on Saturday. The film, produced by Aamir Khan Productions and Viacom18 Motion Pictures, is a Hindi remake of Tom Hanks' 1994 classic "Forrest Gump".
"Secret Superstar" helmer Advait Chandan is directing the film from a script by actor-writer Atul Kulkarni.
Aamir, 54, had announced the project on his birthday in March. The actor, whose last film "Thugs of Hindostan" did not perform well at the box office, said he would be losing around 20 kgs for his role in "Laal Singh Chaddha". The actor had also revealed that he would be sporting a turban for some segments of the film.
There can be good news for residents of Mumbai as the state government is all set to propose a new ordinance to waive property tax on flats. In the monsoon session, government is going to take forward the ordinance, which will eliminate the full property tax on homes having area of less than 500 sq feet.
"We may bring in a new ordinance or introduce a bill in the monsoon session of the state legislature for a compete waiver of property tax for 500 sq ft homes. The current ordinance has done away with the general tax component. The new ordinance will come out after the results of the Lok Sabha elections are declared. Till then property tax bills may be kept on hold for 500 sq ft homes," a BJP MLA told Mumbai Mirror.
The opposition Congress took sharp attack on ruling Sena-BJP alliance for failing to fulfill its promise to waive taxes of flats below 500 square feet in Mumbai. Congress accused BJP-Sena of cheating after a March ordinance only waved off 10 per cent of the property tax bill on flats.
Under pressure from the Shiv Sena, Maharashtra government issued an ordinance waiving of property tax for 500 sq ft homes in February this year. However, only the general tax part of property tax was removed and owners still had to pay for other eight components.
These includes water tax, sewerage tax, education cess for the BMC and the state government, tree tax, water benefit tax, and employment guarantee tax for commercial properties. The general tax consists of just 10-30% of total property tax. But if the new ordinance is passed, the full property tax of homes less than 500 sq feet will be waived off.
Washington D.C.: Prince Harry delayed his trip to the Netherlands next week as he awaits the arrival of his first child. "Due to the logistical planning for the traveling press to cover visits and engagements by The Royal Family, we have taken the decision to postpone The Duke of Sussex's scheduled visit to Amsterdam on Wednesday 8th May 2019," a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as saying.
"The Duke is currently scheduled to travel to The Hague on Thursday 9th May for the launch of the Invictus Games The Hague 2020 as planned," the spokesperson added.
While there have been speculations that Meghan Markle has already secretly given birth, Buckingham Palace recently confirmed to E! News that the baby hasn't been born yet.
The announcement of Harry and Meghan expecting their first child together was made on the Twitter handle of Kensington Palace on October 15 last year.
A Boeing 737 went into the St. John's River near Jacksonville, Florida in the US with 136 on board after landing on Friday, a spokesman for Naval Air Station Jacksonville said, reported news agency Reuters. There were no reports of fatalities.
London: The UK's Prince Harry has shortened a forthcoming trip to the Netherlands, prompting inevitable speculation that his wife, Meghan, could be about to give birth, the media reported on Saturday.
Harry had been due to visit the country for two days starting May 8, but will now fly in and out the next day. The decision has been attributed to logistical challenges, but the Duchess of Sussex is known to be in the late stages of her pregnancy, CNN reported. "Due to the logistical planning for the travelling press to cover visits and engagements by The Royal Family, we have taken the decision to postpone The Duke of Sussex's scheduled visit to Amsterdam on Wednesday 8th May 2019," Buckingham Palace said in a statement.
"The Duke is currently scheduled to travel to The Hague on Thursday 9th May for the launch of the Invictus Games The Hague 2020 as planned." The couple previously announced they would keep details of the birth private. In a statement on April 11, the couple said they "look forward to sharing the exciting news with everyone once they have had an opportunity to celebrate privately as a new family". In February, Harry and Meghan visited Morocco which was their last official trip outside Britain before their baby's arrival.
Washington: A 35-year-old Pakistani-American national has been arrested by the FBI on his arrival from Pakistan for being in contact with two UN-proscribed terror groups the Islamic State and the JeM.
Waqar Ul-Hassan, a naturalised US citizen who moved to America at the age of 15, was arrested at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina on Tuesday. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar was designated as a global terrorist by the UN on May 1. Hassan was arrested on two counts of making false statements in 2015 about his contacts with terrorist groups. If convicted, he faces up to eight years of imprisonment.
According to court documents, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2014 received information that he was in contact with terrorist organisations. During an interview with the FBI, he denied having any contacts with the terrorist groups or helping them. Later in November 2015, Hassan during another interview with the FBI admitted that he had lied and was in contact with two terrorist groups — the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and JeM. He acknowledged being untruthful in previous FBI interviews regarding his knowledge of persons associated with foreign terrorist organisations.
The FBI said Hassan admitted to extensive contacts with a JeM recruiter, who he identified by name. He also admitted to exchanging phone numbers with the recruiter and having several conversations about extremism with him. Hassan further admitted he traveled to – and stayed with – JeM extremists for two or three days in 2014, traveled in Pakistan in 2013 and 2014 to collect money and food for JeM extremists, and passed out recruiting newspapers for JeM in Pakistan in 2014, the FBI said. Hassan admitted that he had not been truthful because he knew JeM was a terrorist group.
"Between 2013 and 2014 I traveled… around the city of Gujrat (in Pakistan) and surrounding area collecting money and food for Jaish Mujahiden two or three times. In 2014, while staying with Jaish Mujahideen they told me about an attack on Indian soldier they conducted the previous year. They showed me a news video of the attack," Hassan said in a written statement to the FBI, according to court documents. "I also past out a newspaper that Jaish Mujahiden uses to recruit people and collect money. I lied because I was scared of getting in trouble because I participated in collecting money, food and passing out the newspaper for Jaish Mujahadin which is a terrorist group but they also help the poor in Pakistan," he said.
Hassan was born on February 10, 1984 in Uttam Gujrat, Pakistan. He moved with his family to Brooklyn, New York in 1999 at the age of fifteen. He became a naturalised United States citizen in 2002, but retained citizenship in Pakistan. Hassan told investigators that he was in contact with ISIS as well. The complaint said because he was angry about what was happening to Muslims around the world, he was serious about sending USD 175 to Jihadists in Syria. Hassan said that he did not send the money because he did not have a way to get the money there.
New Delhi: Not known to pull back punches, Gautam Gambhir hit back at Shahid Afridi, offering to take him to a session with "a psychiatrist" after the former Pakistan captain wrote a few uncharitable things about the Indian opener. Afridi in his just-released autobiography 'Game Changer' had sarcastically referred to Gambhir as someone who "behaves like a cross between Don Bradman and James Bond," and has a "lot of attitude and no great records"
Gambhir responded through his official twitter handle tagging Afridi. "…you are a hilarious man!!! Anyway, we are still granting visas to Pakistanis for medical tourism. I will personally take you to a psychiatrist," Gambhir tweeted. The duo never shared a great rapport on and off-the-field and it was reflected in Afridi's take on Gambhir.
"Some rivalries were personal, some professional. First the curious case of Gambhir. Oh poor Gautam. He & his attitude problem. He who has no personality. He who is barely a character in the great scheme of cricket. He who has no great records just a lot of attitude," Afridi wrote.
"Gambhir behaves like he's a cross between Don Bradman & James Bond. In Karachi, we call guys like him saryal (grumpy). It's simple, I like happy, positive people. Doesn't matter if they are aggressive or competitive, but you have to be positive & Gambhir wasn't," he further wrote.
The two had an angry bust up during a bilateral series ODI in Kanpur back in 2007 (wrongly referred in Afridi's book as Asia Cup game). "I remember the run-in with Gambhir during the 2007 Asia Cup, when he completed his single while running straight into me. The umpires had to finish it off or I would have. Clearly we had a frank bilateral discussion about each other's female relatives," Afridi recalled the uncharitable verbal exchange. Afridi has recently agreed that he had indulged in age-fraud and was 21 years old when he scored his hundred debut and not 16 as it was believed for a lot of years.
Sonakshi Sinha is over the 'Kalank' fiasco is looking forward to her hit maker, Dabangg 3. The actress has already began shooting for the film and has big plans for the the franchise. Reports suggest the actress has asked the writers to give her another iconic dialogue just like the first.
Sinha who made her debut along side Salman Khan's Chulbul Pandey had an iconic line in the film, "thappad se darn ahi lagta saab, pyaar se dar lagta hai" (I am not scared of being slapped sir, but I am scared of love")
Now she hopes to give her audience another, even better, iconic performance, "I keep telling the writers of 'Dabangg' that it's time for another iconic one," said Sinha with a laugh.
Talking about returning to her debut franchise, she said, "'Dabangg 3' is like going back to home base for me. I feel life has come full circle now. I started off my career with Dabangg 1 and we are now on our third instalment. It's a first for any actress to be in all their franchises. I am so proud of the fact that I am still a part of 'Dabangg'."
Directed by Prabhu Deva, and produced by Arbaaz Khan 'Dabangg 3' will release on 20th December 2019
United Nations: The Indian government's "zero casualty" policy for cyclones and the pinpoint accuracy of the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) early warning system have helped reduce the possibility of deaths from cyclone Fani, according to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (ODRR).
"They seem to have done a very good job in terms of minimising the possibility for loss of life," Denis McClean, a spokesperson for the ODRR said at a UN news briefing in Geneva on Friday. "The almost pinpoint accuracy of the warnings, the early warnings from the IMD, allows them to conduct a very well targeted evacuation plan which resulted in 1.1 million people mainly moving to about 900 cyclone shelters." As of Saturday morning, less than 10 deaths were reported from the 175-kmph cyclone that made landfall in Odisha on Friday.
India's policy of minimising fatalities from cyclones has been proven by past performances as in cyclone Phailin in 2013, when "famously the casualty rate was kept to as low as 45 despite the intensity of the storm", McClean said. Clare Nullis, a spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said that as a result of the lessons learned from the super cyclonic storm BOB06 that caused more than 10,000 deaths, intensive precautions are being taken to protect the people. She also mentioned how as a result, Phailin's fatalities were far less than in 1999.
UN's humanitarian agencies had met ahead of cyclone Fani to take stock of preparedness measures, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a briefing in New York. The UN's relief organisations' resources are already stretched bringing aid to countries in East Africa reeling from a double punch delivered by cyclones Idai and Kenneth in the past two months.
Idai, which struck Mozambique on March 14 and then ripped through Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, left more than 1,000 people dead. Six weeks later, Kenneth hit Comoros on April 24 and tore into Mozambique the next day. The death toll in the second cyclone is about 40. The head of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Regional Office for Southern and Eastern Africa, Gemma Connell, told reporters via teleconference: "We are operating two operations on shoe-string budget We desperately need more money to come in."
Food assistance has been provided to 27,000 people affected by Kenneth despite the torrential rains that followed impacting relief efforts. Mozambique has not had cyclones before and the two that have devastated it are the result of climate change, she said. "What is absolutely tragic is that these weather events are impacting the people who have had the least contribution to climate change in the world." UN agencies are also trying to stop an outbreak of cholera in Mozambique in the aftermath of the flooding, she added.
New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for raising suspicion over the claims of the surgical strike during UPA regime and asserted that doing so is an insult to the Army.
Address a media briefing here, Gandhi said: "The Army, Air Force or Navy is not personal properties of Narendra Modi ji like he thinks. When he says that surgical strikes during UPA were done in video games then he is not insulting Congress, but the Army. These air strikes were done by the Army and we do not politicize the Army. The Prime Minister should not insult the Army." On Thursday, Congress party claimed that six surgical strikes were conducted during former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's regime from 2004 to 2014.
Gandhi scion also stated that his party will keep on using the slogan of 'Chowkidar Chor hai.' He said: "The process (Rafale case) is going on in Supreme Court and I made a comment attributed to SC so I apologized. I did not apologize to BJP or Modi ji. 'Chowkidar Chor hai' will remain our slogan." He also said the Congress's internal assessment is clearly saying that the BJP is losing.
"More than half of elections are over and there is a clear-cut feeling that Narendra Modi is losing. The main issues are jobs, farmers, corruption by the Prime Minister and attack on an institution. People of the country are asking questions. Unemployment is the biggest issue in front of the country. The country is asking that Narendra Modi had promised employment to 2 crore people, but today there is maximum unemployment in the country in 45 years. In Congress's manifesto, we have the first chapter on jobs whereas Narendra Modi is not speaking a word on jobs because he cannot speak over it. He cannot speak because he has no plan or vision on the issue," said Gandhi.
Congress president once again attacked the BJP on the issue of release of Masood Azhar and said, "Strictest of actions should be taken against Masood Azhar, but who sent him back to Pakistan? Who bowed down to terror and released him? Not the Congress, but it was the BJP Government." The statements by Congress president Rahul Gandhi come at a time when the country is in middle of General Election and the voting for the fifth phase is scheduled for May 6. The results of all phases will be announced on May 23.
Chemicals toxic: Food and Drug Administration tells mango sellers Last year in the month of May, the FDA had raided APMC market in Vashi after getting the tip-of selling ripened mangoes using toxic chemicals.
Gujarat: Dance, drama to mark Mahatma Gandhiji's 150th birth anniversary Remembering Bapu: Navjivan Trust chalks out programs to reinvent Bapu for young generation
