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Thursday, March 28, 2024
Canada’s maple syrup in a sticky situation (BBC) Canada’s maple syrup reserve—the world’s only—has reached a 16-year low, raising questions about the future of a globally loved sweet staple in the face of climate change. The reserve, located in Quebec, is designed to hold 133 million pounds of maple syrup at any given year. But in 2023, the supply fell to 6.9 million pounds (3.1 million kg). Experts link the shortage to both a rise in demand and warmer weather, which has disrupted production. Canada’s billion-dollar maple syrup industry accounts for 75% of the world’s entire maple syrup production.
Crew aboard Dali all survived bridge crash ‘by God’s grace’ (Washington Post) The director of a Baltimore ministry heard a loud boom in the wee hours of Tuesday and figured it was thunder. Then he woke up, turned on the radio and learned that the noise had been the sound of a catastrophe—the crash of a ship into a bridge that involved merchant sailors he had seen just hours earlier. Andrew Middleton, director of the local Apostleship of the Sea, texted a seafarer aboard the 985-foot container ship Dali. “Is everyone on board safe?” he asked at 6:03 a.m. Five minutes later, the crew member replied. “Yes. By God’s grace.” Their exchange is the first publicly reported communication from a mariner aboard the vessel, which lost power and slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.
South Carolina has $1.8 billion but doesn’t know where the money came from or where it should go (AP) South Carolina has collected about $1.8 billion in a bank account over the past decade and state and private accountants are still trying to figure out where the cash came from and where it was supposed to go. “It’s like going into your bank and the bank president tells you we have a lot of money in our vault but we just don’t know who it belongs to,” said Republican Sen. Larry Grooms, who is leading a Senate panel investigating the problem. It’s the latest trouble with the state’s books and the two agencies, typically led by elected officials, that are in charge of making sure government accounts stay balanced.
Fleeing violence in Haiti (Foreign Policy) France airlifted around 240 people from Haiti on Wednesday as gang violence escalates in the capital, Port-au-Prince. More than 170 evacuees were French citizens and around 70 others were foreign nationals. Paris’s decision echoes other nations’ efforts to evacuate their citizens, including a Canadian flight to the Dominican Republic on Monday and U.S. flights the same day to Miami, Florida. The evacuations come amid a surge in armed attacks over the past month on key infrastructure across Port-au-Prince by gangs that have repeatedly targeted police stations; released thousands of prisoners; and closed roads, hospitals, and Toussaint Louverture International Airport. Mired in an ongoing political crisis, the country has been unable to stop the violence.
Spraying manure and throwing beets, farmers in tractors again block Brussels to protest EU policies (AP) Farmers threw beets, sprayed manure at police and set hay alight on Tuesday as hundreds of tractors again sealed off streets close to the European Union headquarters, where agriculture ministers sought to ease a crisis that has led to months of protests across the 27-member bloc. The farmers protested what they see as excessive red tape and unfair trading practices as well as increased environmental measures and cheap imports from Ukraine. “Let us make a living from our profession,” read one billboard on a tractor blocking a main thoroughfare littered with potatoes, eggs and manure. As the protests turned into violence again, police used tear gas and water cannons to keep farmers and some 250 tractors at bay. Authorities asked commuters to stay out of Brussels and work from home as much as possible.
Ukrainian navy says a third of Russian warships in the Black Sea have been destroyed or disabled (AP) Ukraine has sunk or disabled a third of all Russian warships in the Black Sea in just over two years of war, the navy spokesman said Tuesday, a heavy blow to Moscow’s military capability. Ukraine’s Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk told The Associated Press that the latest strike on Saturday night hit the Russian amphibious landing ship Kostiantyn Olshansky that was resting in dock in Sevastopol in Russia-occupied Crimea. The ship was part of the Ukrainian navy before Russia captured it while annexing the Black Sea peninsula in 2014. Pletenchuk has previously announced that two other landing ships of the same type, Azov and Yamal, also were damaged in Saturday’s strike along with the Ivan Khurs intelligence ship. He told the AP that the weekend attack, which was launched with Ukraine-built Neptune missiles, also hit Sevastopol port facilities and an oil depot.
Anti-Christian Attacks Surge as Hindu Nationalism Grows (Christianity Today) The number of violent anti-Christian incidents in India jumped to 601 in 2023 compared to 413 the previous year, according to a new report from the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission (EFI-RLC). India is home to about 28 million Christians, or about two percent of the country’s population of 1.4 billion. The majority of attacks on Christians were categorized as threats and harassment (201) followed by 146 instances of false accusations and subsequent arrests. The report follows and reinforces the narrative of the 2024 World Watch List released earlier this year by Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors, which ranks India at number 11, noting the sustained rise of Hindu nationalism: “Any Christian who does convert from Hinduism is most likely to come under intense pressure or even violence. They can face constant pressure to renounce their new faith, face job loss/discrimination, endure physical assaults, and even be murdered. Church leaders are also in danger in many parts of India: extremists target them (along with their families) to create fear and chaos in the Christian community.”
South Korea doctors’ strike widens as medical professors join protests (Guardian) South Korea’s doctors’ strike is widening as medical professors across the nation say they’re going to join the collective action, which currently only involves trainee doctors who are protesting pay disparities and a government plan to sharply increase medical school admissions. The head of the Medical Professors Association of Korea said that medical professors would begin their strike by scaling back outpatient treatment to focus on patients with critical needs, while some professors are expected to turn in their resignations soon. The professors will be backing trainee doctors’ claims that adding 2,000 additional medical students per year will degrade the quality of Korea’s medical services.
Hong Kong official warns online criticism could breach new national security law (Guardian) Hong Kong’s justice minister has warned that posting and sharing criticism of the city’s newly enacted national security law could be in breach of the legislation, which lays down harsh penalties for sedition. Secretary for justice Paul Lam said in a televised interview on Sunday that a person might commit an offence if they reposted online critical statements issued by foreign countries and persons overseas, depending on their “intention and purpose”. The Article 23 legislation, which came into force on Saturday, includes penalties of up to life imprisonment for five categories of crime including treason, insurrection, espionage, sabotage and external interference. It also expands the British colonial-era offence of “sedition” to include inciting hatred against China’s Communist party leadership. Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang said in the same interview that additional evidence such as “what you keep at home and what other acts you have done” would have to be collected to facilitate prosecution. “As I often said, if you breached the law, I will definitely find evidence against you,” Tang said.
7 Lebanese and an Israeli killed in an exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border (AP) An Israeli airstrike on a paramedics center linked to a Lebanese Sunni Muslim group in south Lebanon killed seven of its members early Wednesday and triggered a rocket attack from Lebanon that killed one person in northern Israel, officials said. The strike on the village of Hebbariye came after a day of airstrikes and rocket attacks between Israel’s military and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group along the Lebanon-Israel border, raising concerns of further escalation along the frontier that has been active for the past five months of the Israel-Hamas war. The airstrike after midnight Tuesday hit an office of the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps, according to the Lebanese Ambulance Association. It was one of the deadliest single attacks since violence erupted along the border. The paramedics association listed the names of seven volunteers who were killed in the strike. It said the strike was “a flagrant violation of humanitarian work.”
Israel Presses On With Strikes in Gaza After U.N. Cease-Fire Resolution (NYT) The Israeli military pressed on with its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, signaling that the passing of a United Nations resolution calling for a cease-fire for the holy month of Ramadan the day before had not shaken Israel’s determination to keep fighting. The military said its fighter jets had struck “over 60 targets” in Gaza over the previous day. It added that its forces were also operating in central Gaza, where it said they had killed “a number of terrorists.” Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency, said Tuesday that the Israeli military had struck residential homes and buildings and that dozens of people were killed. In a statement, the Israeli military added that it was continuing its “operational activity” around Al-Amal Hospital and the town of Al-Qarara, in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza, adding that its forces were “eliminating terrorists and carrying out targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure.”
Majority of Americans Disapprove of Israel’s Actions in Gaza, New Poll Shows (NYT) A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, in a pronounced shift from November, according to a new poll released by Gallup on Wednesday. In a survey conducted from March 1-20, 55 percent of U.S. adults said they disapproved of Israel’s military actions—a jump of 10 percentage points from four months earlier, Gallup found. Americans’ approval of Israel’s conduct in the war dropped by an even starker margin, from 50 percent in November, a month after the war began, to 36 percent in March. The findings are the latest evidence of growing American discontent with Israel over the course of the five months in which it has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including nearly 14,000 children, according to local health officials and the United Nations. Israeli officials say roughly 1,200 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.
A decade of documenting more than 63,000 migrant deaths shows that fleeing is more lethal than ever (AP) More than a decade ago, the death of 600 migrants and refugees in two Mediterranean shipwrecks near Italian shores shocked the world and prompted the U.N. migration agency to start recording the number of people who died or went missing as they fled conflict, persecution or poverty to other countries. Governments around the world have repeatedly pledged to save migrants’ lives and fight smugglers while tightening borders. Yet 10 years on, a report by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project published Tuesday shows the world is no safer for people on the move. On the contrary, migrant deaths have soared. Since tracking began in 2014, more than 63,000 have died or are missing and presumed dead, according to the Missing Migrants Project, with 2023 the deadliest year yet. “The figures are quite alarming,” Jorge Galindo, a spokesperson at IOM’s Global Data Institute, told The Associated Press. “We see that 10 years on, people continue to lose their lives in search of a better one.”
Vinyl (The Verge) For the second year in a row, vinyl records outsold CDs, with people buying 43 million vinyl records and just 37 million CDs. Vinyl accounted for $1.4 billion worth of revenue compared to just $537 million from CDs. Streaming dwarfs them all—$14.4 billion in revenue—and scored 84 percent of the music revenues in the U.S.
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Thought of the Day
“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Wednesday, March 27, 2024
How a cargo ship took down Baltimore’s Key Bridge (Washington Post) To bridge experts, the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after being hit by a heavy cargo ship was as inevitable as it was devastating. When a vessel as heavy as the Singapore-flagged Dali collides with such force against one of the span’s supercolumns, or piers, the result is the type of catastrophic, and heartbreaking, chain reaction that took place early Tuesday. “If the column is destroyed, basically the structure will fall down,” said Dan Frangopol, a bridge engineering and risk professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who is president of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety. “It’s not possible to redistribute the loads. It was not designed for these things.” No bridge pier could withstand being hit by a ship the size of the Dali, said Benjamin W. Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University. In video imagery, the ship can be seen losing electrical power, then briefly regaining it before going completely dark. The ship issued a mayday call shortly before striking the bridge, giving officials time to stop traffic and try to evacuate it before it fell into the river.
DeSantis Signs Social Media Bill Barring Accounts for Children Under 14 (NYT) Florida on Monday became the first state to effectively bar residents under the age of 14 from holding accounts on services like TikTok and Instagram, enacting a strict social media bill that is likely to upend the lives of many young people. The landmark law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is one of the more restrictive measures that a state has enacted so far in an escalating nationwide push to insulate young people from potential mental health and safety risks on social media platforms. The statute both prohibits certain social networks from giving accounts to children under 14 and requires the services to terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users. It also requires the platforms to obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds. In a press conference on Monday, Mr. DeSantis said it will help parents navigate “difficult terrain” online. He added that “being buried” in devices all day long was not the best way to grow up. The new Florida measure is almost certain to face constitutional challenges over young people’s rights to freely seek information and companies’ rights to distribute information.
Joe Biden’s Political Origin Story Is Almost Certainly Bogus (Politico/Washington Free Beacon) A new investigation from The Washington Free Beacon’s Joseph Simonson and Andrew Kerr raises major questions about a story President Joe Biden has long told: when he successfully defended a construction company as a young lawyer from an injured welder’s lawsuit. Biden said feeling guilty over his role pushed him to switch to public defense and politics. But the Free Beacon finds that “this story is almost certainly a complete work of fiction”—that the case in question seems to have happened while Biden was still in law school, and the welder actually won.
U.S. allows U.N. ceasefire vote, but it’s too late for many in Gaza (Washington Post) In a surprise move Monday, the United States abstained during a United Nations Security Council vote calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. For many people in Gaza, the passage of the Security Council comes far too late. The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, forced the overwhelming majority of people in Gaza to flee their homes and plunged more than half of Gaza’s population into a de facto famine. Small children are dying of malnutrition in what U.N. officials describe to be the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world. On Monday, Israeli forces continued their week-long raid of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City amid Israeli claims of a Hamas presence in the facility. Israel also said it would cease cooperation with UNRWA, the U.N. agency that distributes most aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres describes as “the one ray of light for millions of people” subsisting of its support. Through all this, the United States has operated hand-in-glove with Israel, greenlighting a surge in arms transfers to reinforce the Israeli military’s relentless bombing campaigns.
Forest fires burn in nearly half of Mexico’s drought-stricken states, fueled by strong winds (AP) Forest fires were burning in nearly half of Mexico’s drought-stricken states Monday fueled by strong winds. The National Forestry Commission reported 58 active fires in 15 states, including in protected nature reserves in Morelos, Veracruz and Mexico states. A preliminary estimate of the affected area reached more than 3,500 acres (1,421 hectares).
Venezuela’s main opposition coalition unable to register a presidential candidate (AP) The main Venezuelan opposition coalition said early Tuesday that electoral authorities didn’t let it register its presidential candidate as the deadline ended, in what it called the latest violation to the citizens’ right to vote for change in the South American country. Hours before the opposition coalition couldn’t register Yoris, President Nicolás Maduro made official his candidacy for a third term that would last until 2031. Polls show the unpopular Maduro would be trounced by a landslide if Venezuelan voters were given half a chance.
Brazil Police to Probe Bolsonaro’s Stay at Hungary Embassy (Bloomberg) Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court on Monday gave former President Jair Bolsonaro 48 hours to explain why he stayed at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília for two days in February. According to security footage obtained by the New York Times, Bolsonaro appeared to seek political asylum from Budapest mere days after federal authorities confiscated his passport as part of a criminal investigation into whether he tried to incite an insurrection and purposefully spread voting disinformation, among other charges. On Monday, Brazil’s federal police launched an investigation into the far-right leader’s movements. Bolsonaro confirmed that he stayed at the embassy beginning Feb. 12 but only said, “I have a circle of friends with some world leaders. They’re worried,” when asked why. His lawyers added that Bolsonaro’s visit was to discuss political matters. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry refused to comment.
Moscow rampage reveals ambition, deadly reach of ISIS successor groups (Washington Post) A few months before being killed in a U.S. Special Forces raid, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released a final video message that symbolically passed the torch to far-flung followers in distant lands. His self-declared caliphate had been defeated, he acknowledged, and it was now up to the terrorist group’s regional chapters to carry out “revenge operations” around the world. “Our battle today is one of attrition and stretching the enemy,” Baghdadi said in the April 2019 video, released just after the fall of the Islamic State’s last stronghold in Syria. “They should know that jihad is ongoing until the Day of Judgment.” Friday’s bloodbath at a suburban Moscow concert hall is but the latest reminder of how effectively Baghdadi’s brutal vision is being carried out. While his self-proclaimed Middle East “caliphate” is in ruins, a constellation of Islamic State regional affiliates is gaining strength in many parts of the globe, fueled by a mix of traditional grievances as well as new ones, including the war in Gaza, counterterrorism officials and experts say.
Japan approves plan to sell fighter jets to other nations in latest break from pacifist principles (AP) Japan’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it’s developing with Britain and Italy to other countries, in the latest move away from the country’s postwar pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project and part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to countries other than the partners. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the changes are necessary given Japan’s security environment, but stressed that Japan’s pacifist principles remain unchanged.
Israeli Soldier’s Video Undercuts Medic’s Account of Sexual Assault (NYT) New video has surfaced that undercuts the account of an Israeli military paramedic who said two teenagers killed in the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 were sexually assaulted. The unnamed paramedic, from an Israeli commando unit, was among dozens of people interviewed for a Dec. 28 article by The New York Times that examined sexual violence on Oct. 7. He said he discovered the bodies of two partially clothed teenage girls in a home in Kibbutz Be’eri that bore signs of sexual violence. The Associated Press, CNN and The Washington Post reported similar accounts from a military paramedic who spoke on condition of anonymity. Nili Bar Sinai, a member of a group from the kibbutz that looked into claims of sexual assault at the house, said, “This story is false.”
Israeli settlers eye Gaza beachfront (BBC) Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but some in the Israeli settler movement still hope to go back, one day. Daniella Weiss, who heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland, says she already has a list of 500 families ready to move to Gaza immediately. We meet Daniella at her home in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, where red-roofed houses are spread over hilltops and valleys. Her vision for the future of Gaza—now home to 2.3 million Palestinians, many of them starving—is that it will be Jewish. “Gaza Arabs will not stay in the Gaza Strip,” she says. “Who will stay? Jews.” She claims that Palestinians want to leave Gaza and that other countries should take them in. “Africa is big. Canada is big. The world will absorb the people of Gaza. How we do it? We encourage it. Palestinians in Gaza, the good ones, will be enabled. I’m not saying forced, I say enabled because they want to go,” she says. There is no evidence that Palestinians want to leave their homeland—although many may now dream of escaping temporarily, to save their lives. I put it to her that her comments sound like a plan for ethnic cleansing. She does not deny it.
Young Opposition Candidate Set to Become Senegal’s President (NYT) With the concession of his main rival, a young political outsider backed by a powerful opposition figure has won a surprise outright victory in Senegal’s presidential election only 10 days after being released from jail. Bassirou Diomaye Faye is the anointed candidate of Senegal’s popular and controversial opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Mr. Faye’s main rival, the governing party candidate Amadou Ba, conceded in a statement congratulating his rival on Monday for winning in the first round. Mr. Faye, who celebrated his 44th birthday on Monday, will become the West African country’s youngest ever president, and the youngest elected president currently serving in Africa. (There are younger leaders, but they came to power by force.) He had been jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, and was awaiting trial. Mr. Faye and Mr. Sonko have captivated young people by excoriating political elites, pledging to renegotiate contracts with oil and gas companies, and promising “monetary sovereignty”—Senegal is one of 14 countries that use the CFA, a currency pegged to the euro and backed by France.
Puppets (Los Angeles Times) The Los Angeles Puppetry Guild represents a diverse bunch, from amateurs to industry professionals, and judging by member rolls puppetry is having a real moment right now. The L.A. guild is up to 200 members, and the Puppeteers of America now recognizes it as the largest such regional body in the country. The surge is mostly people in their 20s and 30s. One theory is that CGI becoming firmly mainstream when it comes to film effects has provoked some yearning for the more tactile medium of puppets.
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Thought of the Day
“Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone.”—Billy Cox
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Tuesday, March 26, 2024
April 15 will be a historic date as Trump becomes the first American president to face criminal trial (NYT) Donald J. Trump is expected to appear in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday to seek another delay of his criminal trial on charges that he covered up a sex scandal that could have derailed his stunning victory in the 2016 presidential election. The trial was to have begun Monday, but the New York State Court judge overseeing it, Juan M. Merchan, delayed it until April 15, citing newly disclosed documents. They came from federal prosecutors who had previously investigated Michael D. Cohen, the former president’s longtime fixer, who arranged the hush-money deal and is expected to be a star witness against Mr. Trump.
Cargo ship hits Baltimore’s Key Bridge, causing it to collapse (AP) A major bridge in Baltimore snapped and collapsed after a container ship rammed into it early Tuesday, and several vehicles fell into the river below. Rescuers were searching for at least seven people in the water. The vessel appears to have hit one of the supports of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the roadway to break apart in several places and plunge into the water, according to a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The ship caught fire and appeared to sink. The bridge, which opened in 1977, spans the Patapsco River, a vital artery that along with the Port of Baltimore is a hub for shipping on the East Coast. It is named for the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The U.S. and Israel have a ‘major credibility problem’ (Washington Post) In a testy exchange earlier this month, a senior U.S. official warned Israeli counterparts of the reputational “damage” as a result of the ongoing war in Gaza. The internal memo of the exchange involving Assistant Secretary of State Bill Russo, obtained by NPR correspondent Daniel Estrin, offered yet another illustration of the rift between the Biden administration and Israel, driven largely by growing American horror at the humanitarian toll of the conflict and Israel’s role in making it worse—even as the United States shields Israel in international forums and helps replenish its war machine. According to NPR, Russo said in his March 13 call that Israel—and the United States, as Israel’s security guarantor and close ally—face a “major credibility problem” because of the war, the astonishing Palestinian death toll (now more than 32,000 people), the man-made famine gripping ravaged areas of the Gaza Strip, and growing global frustration with Israel’s insistence on prolonging the war to fully eradicate militant group Hamas. “The Israelis seemed oblivious to the fact that they are facing major, possibly generational damage to their reputation not just in the region but elsewhere in the world,” the memo said. “We are concerned that the Israelis are missing the forest for the trees and are making a major strategic error in writing off their reputation damage.” All the while, world leaders elsewhere, even allies, are scolding the United States for its complicity in the ongoing crisis. Israel’s credibility problem is also that of the United States.
On the anniversary of the 1976 military coup, Argentines push back against leaders revising history (AP) As Argentina on Sunday marked the most traumatic date in its modern history—the 1976 military coup that ushered in a brutal dictatorship—President Javier Milei posted a startling video that demanded justice. Not for those who suffered repression under the junta, but for those victims of leftist guerrillas before the putsch. Milei posted the video as tens of thousands of protesters, raising banners vowing “Nunca Mas,” or never again, filled downtown Buenos Aires to commemorate the 48th anniversary of the coup and the seven years that followed when as many as 30,000 people were killed or forcibly disappeared in a systematic campaign that still haunts the country. Critics have rejected estimates that 30,000 were disappeared, pointing to an independent commission that could identify only 8,960. Advocates concede the number is imprecise, due to the state’s failure to return bodies and produce evidence.
Britain’s King Charles ‘frustrated’ by pace of cancer recovery (Reuters) Britain’s King Charles is “frustrated” by the pace of his recuperation from cancer, his nephew Peter Phillips said on Sunday, becoming the first member of the royal family to speak in detail about how the monarch was faring. The insight into the king’s mindset comes after Kate, Britain’s Princess of Wales, said on Friday she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy after cancer was found to be present, a fresh health blow to the royal family. Phillips, the eldest of the late Queen Elizabeth’s eight grandchildren and son of Princess Anne, told Sky News Australia in an interview that the King was frustrated as his recovery was taking longer than he’d like. “He’s frustrated that he can’t get on and do everything that he wants to be able to do,” he said, adding that while he was pragmatic and understood the need for recovery time, he was eager to get back to normality.
Paris race celebrates waiters and waitresses (AP) Usain Bolt’s sprint world records were never in danger. Then again, even the world’s fastest-ever human likely wouldn’t have been so quick while balancing a tray with a croissant, a coffee cup and a glass of water through the streets of Paris, and without spilling it everywhere. France’s capital resurrected a 110-year-old race for its waiters and waitresses Sunday. The dash through central Paris celebrated the dexterous and, yes, by their own admission, sometimes famously moody men and women without whom France wouldn’t be France. Why? Because they make France’s cafés and restaurants tick. Without them, where would the French gather to put the world to rights over drinks and food? So drum roll, please, for Pauline Van Wymeersch and Samy Lamrous—Paris’ newly crowned fastest waitress and waiter and, as such, ambassadors for an essential French profession.
Senior doctors in South Korea to submit resignations, deepening dispute over medical school plan (AP) Senior doctors at dozens of hospitals in South Korea planned to submit their resignations Monday in support of medical interns and residents who have been on a strike for five weeks over the government’s push to sharply increase medical school admissions, their leader said. The senior doctors’ action won’t likely cause an immediate worsening of hospital operations in South Korea because they have said they would continue to work even after submitting their resignations. But prospects for an early end to the medical impasse were also dim. About 12,000 interns and medical residents have faced impending suspensions of their licenses over their refusal to end their strikes, which have caused hundreds of cancelled surgeries and other treatments at their hospitals.
Thousands of Christians attend Palm Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem against a backdrop of war (AP) Thousands of Christian faithful attended Palm Sunday celebrations at Jerusalem’s sacred Mount of Olives, marking the first day of Holy Week as conflict surges across the region. Pilgrims waved branches and fronds in the air, items that were placed before Jesus’ feet as he was greeted by cheering crowds during his entrance into Jerusalem, according to the Bible. Earlier Sunday, Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre—revered as the site of Jesus’s crucifixion—also held a service. The celebration marks the beginning of the most somber week in the Christian calendar, which marks Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter. “I’m here because I love Jesus Christ,” said Jennifer Weedon, who traveled form the United States for the occasion.
Witnesses Describe Fear and Deprivation at Besieged Hospital in Gaza (NYT) Seven days after Israel’s military began a raid on the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, a picture of the sustained assault on the complex and its surrounding neighborhood emerges in fragments. Residents nearby described a relentless daily soundtrack of gunshots, airstrikes and explosions. A surgeon spoke of doctors and patients corralled in the emergency ward while Israeli forces took control of the complex outside. A Palestinian teenager who spent four days sheltering in the hospital described the bodies she saw piled up outside the entrance. The aid group Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières), said Sunday on social media that fierce fighting continued around the hospital, “endangering patients, medical staff and people trapped inside with very few supplies.” Interviews with other witnesses in the hospital, residents in or near the facility and the Gazan authorities in recent days, as well as with others who have left the complex over the past week, described a situation of fear and deprivation, interrogations and detentions of Palestinian men by Israeli forces, and a persistent lack of food and water.
Gaza is faced with the prospect of an endless war. (WSJ) Israeli forces are fighting in a growing number of places in the strip that they previously took and withdrew from. Israel’s war effort in Gaza has been hampered by the lack of a plan for how to stabilize the enclave after suppressing Hamas’s fighters. Without a civil authority to restore order, security and basic services, swaths of Gaza have descended into anarchy. This is impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid, contributing to a growing hunger crisis. With no end to the war in sight, the pattern of repeatedly raiding Gazan hospitals and neighborhoods is turning into an endless ordeal for civilians and a source of growing diplomatic tensions between Israel and its allies.
UN demands cease-fire in Gaza during Muslim holy month of Ramadan (AP) The United Nations Security Council on Monday issued its first demand to halt the fighting in Gaza, calling for a cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan after the U.S. abstained and drawing an immediate protest from the Israeli prime minister. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a planned visit to Washington by a high-level delegation and accused the U.S. of “retreating” from a “principled position” by allowing the vote to pass without conditioning the cease-fire on the release of hostages held by Hamas. The resolution passed 14-0 after the U.S. decided not to use its veto power on the resolution.
Nigeria food banks cut back on handouts as prices soar (Reuters) At a warehouse in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, dozens of women patiently wait their turn to receive food handouts. Among them is 68-year-old widow Damilola Salami, who received an invitation to the facility just as she had almost run out of food. The Lagos Food Bank is a crucial lifeline to residents like Salami, but has seen supplies from private and other donors fall as inflation soars in Africa’s biggest economy. Nigeria is grappling with the worst cost of living crisis in decades, which has deepened since President Bola Tinubu rolled out bold but unpopular economic reforms after assuming office last May. “There is nothing for us to eat, we are hungry,” said Salami as she waited for her share of food and cooking oil. “Our children are out of school because of the increase in fees. Now, the children are at home and there is no food.”
Rescue missions (Foreign Policy) Nigerian authorities on Sunday rescued 137 schoolchildren who had been kidnapped from the state of Kaduna earlier this month. They were recovered just days before a roughly $690,000 ransom deadline was set to expire, which Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said he refused to pay. No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, and around 150 people are believed to still be missing. In Mexico, state officials also celebrated a successful rescue mission over the weekend when authorities found 42 hostages, including 18 children, kidnapped by criminal groups in the state of Sinaloa on Friday. Twenty-four people remain missing. The territory is home to the infamous Sinaloa cartel, though police have not yet confirmed who was behind the kidnappings.
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Thought of the Day
“It is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.”—Adlai Stevenson II
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Monday, March 25, 2024
Wintry weather blankets New England and California mountains (AP) It may officially be spring, but wintry weather blanketed the U.S. on Saturday with New England and California seeing a mix of rain, heavy snow and gusty winds. In the West, a winter storm warning was in effect through Sunday morning for parts of the Sierra Nevada, and a 91-mph (147-kph) wind gust was recorded at Mammoth Mountain near the California-Nevada line. About a foot (30 centimeters) of snow had fallen by Saturday morning north of Lake Tahoe.
Rationed food kept Cubans fed during the Cold War. Today an economic crisis has them hungry (AP) Like millions of other Cubans, María de los Ángeles Pozo thinks back fondly to when a government ration book fed her family everything from hamburgers, fish and milk to chocolate and beer. People would even get cakes for birthdays and weddings. The “libreta,” as Cubans know it, was launched in July 1963 and became one of the pillars of the island’s socialist system, helping people through crises including the cutbacks in Soviet aid that led to the 1990s deprivation known as the “Special Period.” That system is undergoing a deep economic crisis that has prompted the exodus of almost half a million Cubans to the U.S. over the last two years, with thousands more heading to Europe. It also has led to a dramatic reduction in the availability of rationed food for those who do not leave. “Everything comes in small portions and delayed,” said Pozo, 57, a school worker who retired to care for her disabled sister and father in the apartment they share in Old Havana. They earn $10 a month between the three. Basic goods like a kilo (2.2 pounds) of powdered milk can cost as much as $8.
For Haitian diaspora, gang violence back home is personal as hopes dim for eventual return (AP) When Vivianne Petit Frere fled her native Haiti for Brazil in 2019 and later walked through the Panamanian jungle and on to Mexico, where she opened a restaurant, she always believed she would eventually return home. Until now. With gang violence wracking Haiti, many of the more than 1 million who have left the Caribbean nation feel helpless when they call terrified family members who can’t leave because airports are closed and crossing to the United States by sea is too risky. “Before, you could say things were OK. I knew things weren’t OK, but I had faith, hope that it would change one day. We lost faith. There is no path forward because of the gangs,” Petit Frere, 36, said at a table of the restaurant she runs in downtown Tijuana with her husband, who also fled Haiti. The escalating unrest has reverberated among those who left Haiti for Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the United States.
Heavy rains kill at least 7 in Rio de Janeiro state, 4-year-old rescued after 16 hours under mud (AP) Heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro state have killed at least seven people, authorities said Saturday, while a 4-year-old girl was rescued after more than 16 hours under mud. The girl was pulled out alive in the city of Petropolis, 69 kilometers (43 miles) north of Rio. Rescue teams had to stop their work Friday night because of risks of new landslides in the region. The girl’s father died as a house was knocked to the ground. She survived because he protected her with his body, members of rescue teams said.
Russia mourns victims of concert shooting (Reuters) Russia lowered flags to half-mast on Sunday for a day of mourning after scores of people were gunned down with automatic weapons at a rock concert outside Moscow in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades. President Vladimir Putin declared a national day of mourning after pledging to track down and punish all those behind the attack, which left 133 people dead, including three children, and more than 150 were injured.
ISIS-K, Group Tied to Moscow Attack, Has Grown Bolder and More Violent (NYT) Few know better than the Taliban what a relentless foe the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan can be. Much of the West considers the Taliban, which reclaimed power in the country in 2021, to be an extremist Islamic movement. But the Islamic State Khorasan, the affiliate that took responsibility for a terrorist attack in suburban Moscow on Friday, has slammed the Taliban government, calling the group’s version of Islamic rule insufficiently hard-line. The Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, is one of the last significant antagonists that the Taliban face in Afghanistan. It has carried out a bloody drumbeat of attacks throughout the country in recent years, seeking to portray the government as incapable of providing security in Afghanistan, experts say. More recently, ISIS-K’s attacks have grown bolder and stretched beyond Afghanistan’s borders: The group killed at least 43 people in an assault on a political rally in northern Pakistan in July. It killed at least 84 people in two suicide bombings in Iran in January. Now, U.S. officials say ISIS-K was behind the attack in Moscow, which killed at least 133 people.
A Chinese pastor is released after 7 years in prison, only to find himself unable to get an ID (AP) Unable to buy a train ticket, or even see a doctor at a hospital, a Chinese pastor found that his even after release from prison, he is not quite free. The Rev. John Sanqiang Cao was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison while coming back from a missionary trip in Myanmar. Now back in his hometown of Changsha in southern Hunan province, he is without any legal documentation in his country, unable to access even the most basic services without a Chinese identification. “I told them I’m a second-(class) Chinese citizen, I cannot do this, I cannot do that,” Cao in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m released, I’m a free citizen, why should there be so many restrictions upon me?” Christianity in China is allowed only in state-sponsored churches, where the ruling Communist Party decides how Scripture should be interpreted. Anything else, including clandestine “house” churches and unofficial Bible schools, is considered illegal, though it was once tolerated by local officials.
Gaza’s Shadow Death Toll: Bodies Buried Beneath the Rubble (NYT) A curly-haired young man shakes as he bends over the mound of smashed concrete that used to be his friend’s home. He clutches his rain-spotted iPhone in his trembling hands, but there is no answer. “Please God, Ahmed,” he sobs in a video posted on social media. “Please God.” Another man on another rubble heap is looking for his wife and his children, Rahaf, 6, and Aboud, 4. “Rahaf,” he cries, leaning forward to scan the twisted pile of gray before him. “What has she done to deserve this?” Gaza has become a 140-square-mile graveyard, each destroyed building another jagged tomb for those still buried within. The most recent health ministry estimate for the number of people missing in Gaza is about 7,000. But that figure has not been updated since November. Gaza and aid officials say thousands more have most likely been added to that toll in the weeks and months since then. Some were buried too hastily to be counted. Others lie decomposing in the open, in places too dangerous to be reached, or have simply disappeared amid the fighting, the chaos and ongoing Israeli detentions.
Budget deal slashes U.S. funding for Palestinians’ U.N. lifeline (Washington Post) Congress voted early Saturday to strip hundreds of millions of dollars from the United Nations agency that distributes most of the food, medicine and basic services to Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East, marking what critics say is a devastating blow to a region in crisis. The United States, along with several other countries, suspended funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in January after Israel alleged that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 Gaza employees participated in Hamas’s cross-border attack on Oct. 7. These new restrictions, advanced by Republicans as part of an $1.2 trillion government spending package, extends the funding moratorium for at least a year. Israel has not publicly disclosed evidence to support its allegations about UNRWA workers’ involvement in the attack or its claims that the group has been infiltrated. Nevertheless, the consequences of the allegations have been sweeping. “It’s the equivalent of the government closing up shop here,” said Bill Deere, director of UNRWA’s Washington office. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can tell you it can’t possibly be good for regional stability when you remove the last vestiges of hope for millions of people.”
Nearly 300 abducted schoolchildren in northwest Nigeria freed after over two weeks in captivity (AP) Nearly 300 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren have been released, local officials said Sunday, more than two weeks after the children were seized from their school in the northwestern state of Kaduna and marched into the forests. At least 1,400 students have been kidnapped from Nigerian schools since 2014, when Boko Haram militants kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls from Borno state’s Chibok village in 2014. In recent years, abductions have been concentrated in the country’s northwestern and central regions, where dozens of armed groups often target villagers and travelers for ransom. Kaduna state Gov. Uba Sani did not give details of the release of the 287 students abducted from their school in the remote town of Kuriga on March 7, at least 100 of them aged 12 or younger.
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Thought of the Day
“The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly.”—Charles Reznikoff
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Sunday, March 24, 2024
UNESCO Warns: Half of Global Population Faces Severe Water Shortages (Spiegel) The annual UNESCO water report highlights that about half of the world's population suffers from severe water scarcity, with over two billion people lacking access to clean drinking water and 3.5 billion people unable to use clean sanitation facilities. The increasing water scarcity is seen as a potential trigger for conflicts worldwide. The report also emphasizes the negative impact of water scarcity on the education of women and girls, particularly in rural areas, where they are responsible for time-consuming water supply, affecting their schooling. Water scarcity also poses a threat to the well-being and existence of the poorest and most vulnerable groups.
Congress Passes Spending Bill in Wee Hours to Fend Off Shutdown (NYT) The Senate overwhelmingly gave final approval early Saturday to a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund more than half of the government, effectively averting a shutdown by sending the legislation to President Biden’s desk just hours after a midnight deadline. The 74-to-24 vote, which concluded about 2 a.m., capped an extraordinary day on Capitol Hill that began with a big bipartisan vote to speed the measure through the House, which set off a conservative revolt and prompted one Republican to threaten a bid to oust Speaker Mike Johnson from his post. The Senate action came more than 12 hours after the House vote, after intense haggling to arrange a series of politically charged votes on proposed changes to the legislation that Republicans had demanded that threatened to push the government into a brief partial shutdown into the weekend.
About 1 in 4 Americans have unfavorable views of both Biden and Trump (Pew Research Center) A sizable share of Americans (26%) say they don’t like President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump. Younger adults are particularly likely to hold this view, as are partisan leaners—those who don’t identify as Republicans or Democrats but lean toward one party. Similar shares of Republican leaners (35%) and Democratic leaners (38%) don’t like either of the 2024 presidential front-runners.
Across US, homeless initiatives highlight a growing crisis (Reuters) U.S. state and local governments pushed ahead this week with divergent strategies to deal with the country’s homeless crisis, aiming either to raise more funds to address the issue or to empower authorities to rid public places of its visible signs. In California, voters narrowly approved a ballot measure that prioritizes funding for homeless services. In Chicago, voters appeared to reject a tax increase on property transfers worth more than $1 million, spelling the defeat of a plan that may have raised $100 million a year to benefit the city’s burgeoning population of residents without stable housing. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis instead advanced a get-tough policy, signing legislation on Wednesday that bans people from camping on city sidewalks, parks and other public places. The coast-to-coast activity reflects concerns that the problem of homelessness is getting worse. In many U.S. cities and towns, it’s commonplace to see destitute people living in the open, with tents pitched on city sidewalks or roaming the streets, pushing politicians to take action.
As its workers stream to the U.S., Mexico runs short of farmhands (Washington Post) For decades, Mexicans crossed the border to pick Americans’ lettuce, grapes and strawberries. Mexico had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of farmhands—tough, hard-working men who did the jobs most Americans didn’t want. But the country is running short of farmworkers. The workforce is graying; nearly three-quarters of Mexican campesinos are over 45. Young people are turning up their noses at farm jobs. And those willing to do migrant work have other options. Nearly 300,000 a year travel to the United States on seasonal agricultural visas, a fourfold increase in a decade. The worker shortage reflects a paradox often overlooked in the supercharged U.S. immigration debate. Even as American politicians outdo each other in proposals to fortify the border with Mexico, economic forces are pulling the two sides closer. The U.S. appetite for made-in-Mexico goods, from avocados to automobiles to airplane parts, is growing so fast that it’s straining the workforce that produces them.
As gangs rampage through Haiti’s capital, more than 33,000 people have fled in 13 days, report finds (AP) More than 33,000 people have fled Haiti’s capital in a span of nearly two weeks as gangs continue to pillage homes and attack state institutions, according to a new report from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration. The majority of those displaced have traveled to Haiti’s southern region, which is generally peaceful compared with Port-au-Prince, which has an estimated population of 3 million and remains largely paralyzed by gang violence. Scores of people have been killed and some 17,000 people overall left homeless since the gang attacks began on Feb. 29, with gunmen targeting police stations and the main international airport that remains closed. They also stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons and released more than 4,000 inmates.
Ecuador’s war on crime (Foreign Policy) Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s war on crime is showing early positive results, the country’s foreign minister said last week. She told news agency EFE that the country had experienced a dramatic 60 percent drop in daily homicides since Noboa imposed a state of emergency in January. That month, Noboa declared that Ecuador was undergoing a state of “internal armed conflict” and deployed security forces to jails and traffic hubs in response to spiraling violence. The president’s approval rating now stands at 80 percent.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, being treated for cancer. (1440) Catherine announced via video Friday she is in the early stages of preventative chemotherapy but did not specify for what type of cancer. The news comes two months after Kensington Palace revealed the 42-year-old future queen and wife of Prince William underwent abdominal surgery for what was a noncancerous condition at the time. King Charles, 75, was diagnosed with cancer last month.
‘Strike Madness’ Hits Germany (NYT) For those striking at the gates of the SRW scrap metal plant, just outside Germany’s eastern city of Leipzig, time can be counted not just in days—136 so far—but in the thousands of card games played, the liters of coffee imbibed and the armfuls of firewood burned. While monthslong strikes may be commonplace in some other European countries like Spain, Belgium or France, where workers’ protests are something of a national pastime, Germany has long prided itself on nondisruptive collective bargaining. A wave of strikes this year has Germans asking whether that is now changing. By some measures, the first three months of 2024 have had the most strikes in the country in 25 years.
Putin says gunmen who raided Moscow concert hall tried to escape to Ukraine. Kyiv denies involvement (AP) Russian authorities arrested the four men suspected of carrying out the attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133 people, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday during an address to the nation. He claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine. Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday's attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State's Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility. Putin didn't mention IS in his speech, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault in order to stoke fervor in Russia's war in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year. A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. agencies had confirmed that IS was responsible for the assault and that they had previously warned Moscow an attack could be imminent.
Chinese coast guard blasts Philippine boat with water cannon in disputed sea for 2nd time this month (AP) Two Chinese coast guard ships fired at a Philippine supply boat with water cannon Saturday in the latest confrontation near a disputed South China Sea shoal, causing heavy damage to the wooden vessel, Philippine officials said. It was not immediately clear if the Philippine navy crew was injured, or whether their damaged boat, the Unaizah May 4, managed to maneuver past the Chinese coast guard blockade to deliver supplies to Philippine forces manning a territorial outpost in the nearby Second Thomas Shoal. It’s the second time this month the Unaizah May 4 has been damaged during an attempt to resupply the outpost. The shoal has been occupied by a small contingent of Philippine navy personnel on a marooned warship since the late 1990s, but has recently been surrounded by Chinese coast guard and suspected militia vessels in an increasingly tense territorial standoff.
Israel announces largest West Bank land seizure since 1993 during Blinken visit (Washington Post) Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the seizure of 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of Palestinian territory in the West Bank on Friday. The move marks the single largest land seizure by the Israeli government since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law. Still, Israel has used land orders like the one issued Friday to gain control over 16 percent of Palestinian-controlled lands in the West Bank. The announcement came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the future of the war in Gaza. Blinken’s arrival followed meetings in Cairo with several Arab leaders, and amid calls from Democratic senators for President Biden to establish a “bold, public framework” for a two-state solution that recognizes a “nonmilitarized Palestinian state.”
Israel determined to invade Rafah (Bloomberg) Israel will invade the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah “even if the entire world turns on Israel, including the United States,” said Ron Dermer, the nation’s strategic affairs minister and a confidante of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Dermer and other Israeli officials will travel to the US to hear the Biden administration’s concerns, including what the United Nations has warned is a looming famine in northern Gaza. In the leaders’ first call in more than a month, Biden warned Netanyahu that invading Rafah, where more than a million displaced Gazans have fled, would be a mistake, leading to more civilian deaths and worsening the already dire humanitarian situation.
Swift quakes (Caltech) Fans at Taylor Swift's Eras Tour concerts in Los Angeles made SoFi Stadium and the ground around it “ring like a bell” last August, creating measurable seismic activity during each song. So say scientists from Caltech and UCLA, who collected seismic data during one of the shows. In a new paper, the researchers report that it was the dancing and jumping movements of the 70,000-plus fans, not the music or sound system, at the August 4 concert that created the seismic waves that have come to be called “Swift quakes.” To analyze the results, the researchers turned to spectrograms, graphs showing how much energy is measured at various frequencies of vibration over time. By pulling out the seismic signals from the spectrograms, the scientists were able to identify 43 out of the 45 songs Swift played at her concert and calculated the total amount of energy radiated for each. They found that the song that came with the largest “concert tremor” was “Shake It Off.” During that song, the amount of radiated energy was equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 0.85.
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Thought of the Day
“Failure to pray is failure along the whole line of life. It is failure of duty, service, and spiritual progress. God must help man by prayer. He who does not pray, therefore, robs himself of God’s help and places God where He cannot help man.”—E. M. Bounds
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newstfionline · 5 days
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Saturday, March 23, 2024
Micro-apartments are back after nearly a century, as need for affordable housing soars (AP) Every part of Barbara Peraza-Garcia and her family’s single-room apartment in Seattle has a double or even triple purpose. The 180-square-foot (17-square-meter) room is filled with an air mattress where she, her partner and their children, ages 2 and 4, sleep. It’s also where they play or watch TV. At mealtimes, it becomes their dining room. It’s a tight squeeze for the family of asylum seekers from Venezuela. But at $900 a month—more than $550 less than the average studio in Seattle—the micro-apartment with a bare-bones bathroom and shared kitchen was just within their budget and gave them a quick exit from their previous arrangement sleeping on the floor of a church. Boarding houses that rented single rooms to low-income, blue-collar or temporary workers were prevalent across the U.S. in the early 1900s. Known as single room occupancy units, or SROs, they started to disappear in the postwar years amid urban renewal efforts and a focus on suburban single-family housing. Now the concept is reappearing—with the trendy name of “micro-apartment” and aimed at a much broader array of residents.
California Democratic lawmakers seek ways to combat retail theft while keeping progressive policy (AP) Facing mounting pressure to crack down on a retail theft crisis, California lawmakers are split on how best to tackle the problem that some say has caused major store closures and products like deodorants to be locked behind plexiglass. Top Democratic leaders have already ruled out reforming progressive policies like Proposition 47, a ballot measure approved by 60% of state voters in 2014 that reduced certain theft and drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors to address overcrowding jails. But a growing number of law enforcement officials, along with Republican and moderate Democratic lawmakers, said California needs to consider all options, including rolling back the measure. While shoplifting has been a growing problem, large-scale thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have become a crisis in California and elsewhere in recent years.
Ghost Army members given Congressional Gold Medal (AP) With inflatable tanks, radio trickery, costume uniforms and acting, the American military units that became known as the Ghost Army outwitted the enemy during World War II. Their mission was kept secret for decades, but on Thursday the group stepped out of the shadows as they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in Washington. Three of the seven known surviving members attended the ceremony. The Ghost Army included about 1,100 soldiers in the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, which carried out about 20 battlefield deceptions in France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany, and around 200 soldiers in the 3133rd Signal Company Special, which carried out two deceptions in Italy. One of the biggest missions, called Operation Viersen, came in March 1945 when the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops’ deception drew German units away from the point on the Rhine River where the 9th Army was actually crossing. “They had hundreds of inflatables set up,” author Rick Beyer said in an interview before the ceremony. “They had their sound trucks operating for multiple nights. They had other units attached to them. They had set up multiple phony headquarters and staffed them with officers who were pretending to be colonels.” “This was an all-hands-on-deck affair and it was completely successful,” Beyer said. “It fooled the Germans. They moved their troops to the river opposite where the deception was.”
A Mexican Drug Cartel’s New Target? Seniors and Their Timeshares (NYT) First the cartel cut its teeth with drug trafficking. Then avocados, real estate and construction companies. Now, a Mexican criminal group known for its brutality is moving in on seniors and their timeshares. The operation is relatively simple. Cartel employees posing as sales representatives call up timeshare owners, offering to buy their investments back for generous sums. They then demand upfront fees for anything from listing advertisements to paying government fines. The representatives persuade their victims to wire large amounts of money to Mexico—sometimes as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars—and then they disappear. The scheme has netted the cartel, Jalisco New Generation, hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly, via dozens of call centers in Mexico that relentlessly target American and Canadian timeshare owners. With little more than a phone and a convincing script, cartel employees are victimizing people across multiple countries.
U.S. evacuating Americans from Haiti as humanitarian crisis worsens (Washington Post) The U.S. government on Thursday airlifted more than 30 stranded Americans out of the Haitian capital, as the gang violence racking this city showed no signs of abating and an already dire humanitarian crisis worsened. The government-organized helicopter flights out of Port-au-Prince began Wednesday, carrying more than 15 U.S. citizens, a State Department spokesperson said, and an estimated 30 Americans will be able to leave on the flights each day that they operate. They’re being taken to the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Officials said those who are airlifted out will be responsible for organizing their onward travel from the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo to the United States. The U.S. government on Thursday also flew more than 60 U.S. citizens from Cap-Haïtien, a city on Haiti’s northern coast, to Miami International Airport.
Far Right’s Success Is a Measure of a Changing Portugal (NYT) The sun-soaked Algarve region on Portugal’s Southern coast is a place where guitar-strumming backpackers gather by fragrant orange trees and digital nomads hunt for laid-back vibes. It is not exactly what comes to mind when one envisions a stronghold of far-right political sentiment. But it is in the Algarve region where the anti-establishment Chega party finished first in national elections this month, both unsettling Portuguese politics and injecting new anxiety throughout the European establishment. Nationwide, Chega received 18 percent of the vote. Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, is the first hard-right party to gain ground in the political scene in Portugal since 1974 and the end of the nationalist dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar. Its formula for success mixed promises of greater law and order with tougher immigration measures and an appeal to economic resentments.
Europe explores using profits from Russian assets to arm Ukraine (Washington Post) Two years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion, Europe may have finally found a way to tap the more than $300 billion of Russian assets that allies froze—but only a bit of it. E.U. leaders are discussing a proposal to use profits generated by immobilized assets to help Kyiv—a plan that could offer about $3 billion a year over several years, mostly for weapons. Top E.U. diplomat Josep Borrell said $3 billion a year is “not extraordinary” but also “not negligible.”
Terrorist attack in Moscow (Foreign Policy) At least three people in combat fatigues fired shots at a concert venue in Moscow on Friday, Russian state media reported. Videos posted online show the building engulfed in flames. At least 93 people were killed in the attack, according to federal authorities, who are investigating the incident as a terrorist attack. The Islamic State claimed responsibility. Earlier, some members of Russia’s legislature were quick to accuse Ukraine and called for more strikes on that country. This is a “great tragedy,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
Russia attacks Ukrainian electrical power facilities, including major hydroelectric plant (AP) Russia attacked electrical power facilities in much of Ukraine, including the country’s largest hydroelectric plant, causing blackouts for more than a million Ukrainians and killing at least three people, officials said Friday. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said the nighttime drone and rocket attacks were “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy sector in recent times. The goal is not just to damage, but to try again, like last year, to cause a large-scale disruption of the country’s energy system.”
India arrests Delhi chief minister as crackdown on opposition spreads (Washington Post) Indian law enforcement officials on Thursday arrested Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi and an up-and-coming opposition leader, in an alleged money-laundering case that his supporters say has been trumped up by the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Kejriwal, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, which rules the Indian capital and the state of Punjab, is the second opposition party chief to be arrested in recent weeks after Hemant Soren, the leader of Jharkhand state, was taken into custody in January over an alleged land scam. Since 2022, Kejriwal and his allies have been accused by the BJP of selling liquor licenses and receiving kickbacks from vendors in the capital. India’s Enforcement Directorate, which investigates money laundering, has alleged it has evidence that Kejriwal’s party received millions of dollars from a liquor group. Opposition parties in recent months have increasingly accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP of unfairly using federal investigative agencies to systematically pressure political rivals—or jail them outright ahead of crucial national elections that begin April 19.
In Jerusalem and the West Bank, Ramadan is marred by violence and loss (Washington Post) The war in Gaza has cast a pall over the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a time of fasting and reflection, charity and community. For Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the occasion is always bittersweet—marked by moments of joy and constant reminders of the Israeli occupation that shapes their lives. Celebrations are circumscribed by Israeli restrictions. Families navigate checkpoints to gather for meals. Violence can interrupt prayer or play at any moment. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, restrictions have been tightened, Israeli military raids have intensified, and settler attacks have driven families from their homes. The combustible atmosphere sparked concerns that Ramadan—which began on March 10 this year—might bring unrest across Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Russia and China strike deal with Houthis to ensure ship safety (Bloomberg) Russia and China have reached an agreement with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Iran-backed militant group that has been attacking ships moving through the Red Sea since the conflict in Gaza broke out. The Houthis, who control the vast majority of Yemen’s population centers, have agreed to let Russian and Chinese ships pass through the area—in return, Moscow and Beijing have promised some “political support.” The deal is an interesting piece of diplomacy because it pits the two countries (and the Houthis) against much of the West. The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the Houthis for their attacks in January (with Russia and China abstaining), and the U.S. and U.K. have orchestrated multiple strikes against the group in an attempt to re-establish their shipping routes.
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Thought of the Day
“If we work in marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity.”—Daniel Webster
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Friday, March 22, 2024
America’s happiness score drops amid a youth ‘midlife crisis’ (Washington Post) The United States is no longer among the world’s 20 happiest countries, according to a new report—with young people hit particularly hard and reporting lower levels of well-being than any other age group. The United States fell from 15th in 2023 to 23rd in this year’s World Happiness Report, which was released Wednesday to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness. The country’s results varied dramatically among different age groups, however, with young people under age 30 ranking 62nd out of 143 countries for happiness, while U.S. adults age 60 and above ranked 10th. This is the first time the United States has slipped out of the top 20 since the report was first launched in 2012. But a similar downward trend in youth well-being is also seen in Canada, which ranked 15th overall but 58th among young people this year. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Center and an editor of the report, said that the report’s findings show “that in North America, and the U.S. in particular, youth now start lower than the adults in terms of well-being. And that’s very disconcerting, because essentially it means that they’re at the level of their midlife crisis today and obviously begs the question of what’s next for them?”
In Vermont, ‘Town Meeting’ is democracy embodied (AP) Julie wants more donations to the food pantry. Kipp is busy knitting a sweater. Shorty is ready to ask: Why is so much being spent on a truck? The coffee, fresh-baked bread and donuts have been laid out. Eighty-seven voters have squeezed into the Elmore Town Hall. Town Meeting is about to begin. Across the United States, people are disgusted with politics. Many feel powerless and alienated from their representatives at every level—and especially from those in Washington. The tone long ago became nasty, and many feel forced to pick a side and view those on the other side as adversaries. But in pockets of New England, democracy is done a bit differently. People can still participate directly and in person. One day each year, townsfolk gather to hash out local issues. They talk, listen, debate, vote. And in places like Elmore, once it’s all over, they sit down together for a potluck lunch.
The challenge of aid delivery in Haiti (BBC) Haiti counts an estimated 360,000 people who have had to flee their homes because of gang violence. Aid is sorely needed. Helicopter flights carrying supplies from the Dominican Republic have begun to arrive. But with the airport in Port-au-Prince and the port both still closed, far more is needed. Juggling her baby godson on her knee, 20-year-old Sarah gives the appearance of a much older woman. "I go to school with no food, spend the day hungry and then go to bed still with nothing in my stomach," she explains. Many in the camp are suffering from illnesses. Drugs and medicines are often prohibitively expensive given their food budget rarely stretches to the basics. On the days they can't raise funds, they're dependent on scarce donations and aid.
As election nears, Venezuelan government keeps arresting opponents (AP) As Venezuela’s government would have it, President Nicolás Maduro and members of his inner circle have been the target of several conspiracies since last year that could have left them injured or worse. Few details have been released about the alleged plots. But the government has cited them in the arrests of more than 30 people since January including a prominent human rights attorney and staffers of the leading opposition presidential candidate. Local and international nongovernment groups, the United Nations and foreign governments have described the crackdown as a pretext to stifle political opposition ahead of the July 28 president election in which Maduro, in power since 2013, will seek a new six-year term.
Russia fires 31 missiles at Kyiv in the first attack in 44 days, and 13 people are hurt (AP) Russia fired 31 ballistic and cruise missiles at Kyiv before dawn Thursday in the first attack on the Ukrainian capital in 44 days, officials said. Air defenses shot down all the incoming missiles, though 13 people including a child were injured by falling wreckage, they said. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles against the capital.
Blowing Up Russian ‘Gas Stations’ With Drones (Bloomberg) Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion has entered a new phase, pitting homegrown drone technology against a 2,000 kilometer (1,200 mile) swathe of largely Soviet-era oil facilities. At least nine major refineries have been successfully attacked this year, currently taking offline 11% of the country’s total capacity by some estimates. “Russia is a gas station with an army, and we intend on destroying that gas station,” Francisco Serra-Martins, co-founder and chief executive officer of drone manufacturer Terminal Autonomy, said in an interview. “We are going to focus on where it hits the hardest, and that’s financial resources.”
China on Track to Be Ready for Taiwan Invasion by 2027, US Says (Bloomberg) China is building its military and nuclear arsenal on a scale not seen by any country since World War II and all signs suggest it’s sticking to ambitions to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, a top US admiral told Congress Wednesday. Beijing’s official defense budget has increased by 16% over recent years to more than $223 billion, said Admiral John Aquilino, leader of the Indo-Pacific Command. The Chinese military has also been rehearsing other types of military action against Taiwan including maritime and air blockades, he said. “All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027,” Aquilino warned.
Vietnam: President Vo Van Thuong resigns after a year in office (BBC) Vietnam's president Vo Van Thuong has resigned after only one year in office following a corruption scandal. As his predecessor also quit over corruption, his departure cast a shadow over the ruling Communist Party. While an ongoing anti-corruption campaign is popular with the general public, it has now cost the jobs of two presidents, two deputy prime ministers, thousands of other officials, and seen a former health minister jailed for 18 years.
North Korea’s Missile Threats (Foreign Policy) Pyongyang successfully tested an engine for its intermediate-range hypersonic missile at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in northwest North Korea on Tuesday, state media reported Wednesday. The weapon reportedly used a solid-fuel engine, which lasts longer than liquid-propelled missiles and makes launches more difficult to detect, among other benefits. Defense experts believe that the missile was designed to hit faraway U.S. targets, including military bases in the U.S. territory of Guam; areas of Alaska; and U.S. military installations in Okinawa, Japan. The “military strategic value of this weapon system is appreciated as important as” the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can target the mainland United States, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said. Solid-fuel hypersonic missiles “can potentially neutralize the South Korea-U.S. missile defense system,” Yang Moo-jin, the president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told Agence France-Presse.
Congress Seeks to Bar Funding for U.N. Agency for Palestinians (NYT) The United States would cut off funding for the main U.N. agency that provides aid to Palestinians in Gaza under a spending agreement on track to soon become law, according to two people familiar with the plan. The ban, part of a massive spending bill negotiated by lawmakers and the White House that is expected to clear Congress by this weekend, would create a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars for the agency, known as UNRWA. That could have disastrous consequences for Gazans, who are facing an acute hunger crisis and displacement in crowded shelters and tent encampments. The move would also put Washington at odds with its Western allies over how to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid accusations that Hamas fighters have infiltrated the agency. Though before the war UNRWA employees filled a broad array of civil functions in the territory, operating schools and providing health services, they have since become the main resource on the ground for delivering aid to the territory’s besieged residents.
Israel’s military is using Palestinians as human shields in Gaza (Daraj/Lebanon) Omar Ashour, a 34-year-old Palestinian, describes what Israel’s military did to him after his arrest in northern Gaza: It is just one example that Daraj has found of how the IDF is using detainees as human shields in its months-long war against Hamas. “The Israeli military detained me, and took me to a place where soldiers were gathering. They put a camera on my head, tied explosives to my body, and asked me to enter one of the apartments and quickly return to the place they had gathered.” Ashour was forced to respond to all the demands of Israeli soldiers out of fear for his life. Ashour is one of dozens of detainees used by Israel's military as human shields during its ongoing war on Gaza. Soldiers put civilian Palestinians in front of military targets, endangering their lives, according to multiple accounts from recently-released detainees. International law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit the use of civilians as human shields. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Rome Statute also considered the use of human shields a war crime. In Israel, the B'Tselem rights group said that the Israeli army has over the years, as part of its official policy, used Palestinians as human shields and ordered them to carry out military actions that risked their lives.
Taps have run dry across South Africa’s largest city (AP) For two weeks, Tsholofelo Moloi has been among thousands of South Africans lining up for water as the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, confronts an unprecedented collapse of its water system affecting millions of people. Residents rich and poor have never seen a shortage of this severity. While hot weather has shrunk reservoirs, crumbling infrastructure after decades of neglect is also largely to blame. The public’s frustration is a danger sign for the ruling African National Congress, whose comfortable hold on power since the end of apartheid in the 1990s faces its most serious challenge in an election this year. A country already famous for its hourslong electricity shortages is now adopting a term called “watershedding”—the practice of going without water, from the term loadshedding, or the practice of going without power.
Musk’s Neuralink hosts livestream showing quadriplegic playing online chess (Al Jazeera) Elon Musk’s brain-chip start-up, Neuralink, has livestreamed a patient appearing to play online chess using only his mind. In a video posted on the X social media platform on Wednesday, Neuralink introduced Noland Arbaugh, 29, as the first human patient to be implanted with its brain-computer interface technology. Arbaugh, who described becoming paralysed from the shoulders down in a diving accident, said that using Neuralink had become “intuitive” after practising imagining moving the cursor on the screen. “Basically, it was like using ‘the Force’ on the cursor, and I could get it to move wherever I wanted. Just stare somewhere on the screen and it would move where I wanted it to, which was such a wild experience the first time it happened,” Arbaugh said, referring to the superpowers possessed by the Jedi in the Star Wars films.
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newstfionline · 6 days
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Thought of the Day
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys and dividing our grief.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
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newstfionline · 7 days
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Thursday, March 21, 2024
Government budget deadlines and Congress (CNN) After a few months of back and forth, Congress has finally locked in a budget to keep the American government funded for the rest of the fiscal year. The 2024 fiscal year began on October 1, 2023, and ends September 30, 2024, meaning we’re almost halfway through it. Congress had passed a deal setting funding for some agencies earlier this month, but left other parts of the government un-budgeted up until now. Legislators have until 11:59 p.m. ET Friday to pass the bill, or else the federal government will have to contend with a partial shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, has had to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats despite his party’s majority in the House thanks to a small but vocal group of far-right Republicans.
Mexico Condemns Texas Law, and Says It Will Not Accept Deportations From the State (NYT) Mexico will not accept deportations made by Texas “under any circumstances,” the country’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow Texas to arrest migrants who cross into the state without authorization. The ministry condemned the state law, known as Senate Bill 4, saying it would separate families, violate the human rights of migrants and generate “hostile environments” for the more than 10 million people of Mexican origin living in Texas. Mexico’s top diplomat for North America, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, rejected the ruling on the social media on Tuesday, saying that immigration policy was something to be negotiated between federal governments. The Mexican government has severely criticized the measure since last year, and rejected the idea of local or state agencies, rather than federal authorities, detaining and returning migrants and asylum seekers to Mexican territory. (Note: A federal appeals court blocked Texas’s immigration law law just hours after the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect.)
Sex is back at the Olympic Village: Paris will hand out 300,000 condoms (Washington Post) Four new sports, including skateboarding and surfing, will be featured at this summer’s Paris Olympic Games. But one age-old form of physical activity is also set to make a comeback: sex, or as the French call it, “sport in the room.” Organizers in the City of Love are not only turning the page on the covid-era intimacy ban imposed on athletes at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021—they plan to make 300,000 condoms available to residents of the Olympic Village. With that quantity, every resident “will have what they are expecting and what they need,” said Laurent Michaud, director of the Olympic and Paralympic Village, in an interview with Sky News. The news will likely be welcomed by many athletes, who were asked by the International Olympic Committee to “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact” during the last Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games because of the pandemic.
Polish farmers stage more food protests (Reuters) Polish farmers were planning more than 500 road blockades on Wednesday to protest against cheap food imports from Ukraine and the European Union’s climate policy. Farmers in Poland and across the EU have been calling for changes to restrictions placed on them by the bloc’s Green Deal plan to tackle climate change. They also want the re-imposition of customs duties on imports of agricultural products from neighbouring Ukraine that were waived after Russia’s invasion. They say Ukraine’s farmers are flooding EU markets with cheap imports that leave them unable to compete. Polish police said they knew of more than 580 protests planned for Wednesday, with an estimated participation of 70,000 people.
The war in Ukraine has split the Czechs and Slovaks (Washington Post) The ongoing war in Ukraine is splitting the Czechs and Slovaks all over again—or at least their governments. Over the past month, the marked differences between a staunchly pro-Kyiv government in Prague and Slovakia’s Russia-friendly Prime Minister Robert Fico have come to the fore. On one hand, the Czechs have pioneered a plan to surge desperately needed artillery shells to Ukraine’s front lines, sourcing munitions from the arsenals of countries around the world. On the other, Fico, a populist and four-term prime minister who returned to power at the end of last year after a spell in opposition, has suspended military assistance to Ukraine after campaigning to not send “another bullet” to Kyiv. He has repeatedly called for the war to end with significant Ukrainian concessions to Russia. Since the end of the Cold War and the subsequent bifurcation of Czechoslovakia, the two countries that emerged maintained warm brotherly ties, even when ruling governments in Prague and Bratislava were of differing political stripes. But disagreements over how or how not to support Ukraine have brought about an unprecedented rupture.
Ukraine races to build weapons at home (Washington Post) Ukraine manufactured practically no weapons before Russia invaded in February 2022, but the local arms industry is now booming. Factories spit out shells, mortar rounds, military vehicles, missiles and other items crucial to the war effort. Production tripled in 2023 and is expected to increase sixfold this year, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a Ukrainian government meeting in January. Local production is not sufficient to make up for a loss of international support, especially weapons from the United States. But for certain crucial items, such as the drones that have transformed how the war is fought, Ukraine is already making 90 percent of what it needs, Mykhailo Fedorov, the digital transformation minister, said at a conference last month.
Russia says it will evacuate 9,000 children from a border region being targeted by Ukraine (AP) Russia plans to evacuate about 9,000 children from a border region because it is being shelled continuously by Ukraine, an official said Tuesday, reflecting Kyiv’s increasing focus on striking targets behind a front line that has barely shifted in recent months. The children will be moved from the Belgorod region farther east, away from the Ukraine border, said the region’s governor, Vyacheslev Gladkov. Ukraine has increasingly used its long-range firepower to hit oil refineries and depots deep inside Russia and has sought to unsettle the Russian border regions, putting political pressure on Putin. In addition, Ukraine-based Russian opponents of Putin and the Kremlin have launched cross-border raids.
The world’s 100 worst polluted cities are in Asia—and 83 of them are in just one country (CNN) All but one of the 100 cities with the world’s worst air pollution last year were in Asia, according to a new report, with the climate crisis playing a pivotal role in bad air quality that is risking the health of billions of people worldwide. The vast majority of these cities—83—were in India and all exceeded the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines by more than 10 times, according to the report by IQAir, which tracks air quality worldwide. “We see that in every part of our lives that air pollution has an impact,” said IQAir Global CEO Frank Hammes. “And it typically, in some of the most polluted countries, is likely shaving off anywhere between three to six years of people’s lives.”
Doing business in China is growing tougher, more uncertain, European business group says (AP) Uncertainty and “draconian regulations” have drastically raised risks for foreign businesses in China, a report by a European business group said Wednesday. The lengthy paper by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China urges China’s leaders to do more to address concerns that it says have “grown exponentially” in recent years. “This report comes at a time when the global business environment is becoming increasingly politicized, and companies are having to make some very tough decisions about how, or in some cases if, they can continue to engage with the Chinese market,” it says. Foreign investment fell 8% last year from a year earlier as companies recalibrated their commitments in the world’s second largest economy.
The Hongkongers worried by new security law (BBC) Hong Kong’s pro-China parliament has passed a tough security law which authorities say is necessary for stability, but which critics fear will further erode civil liberties. Article 23 targets new offences like external interference and insurrection, and penalties include life sentences. Hongkongers have voiced concerns over Article 23, particularly over the use of broad and vague definitions in the legislation. Civil servant George told the BBC he was most concerned about its definition of “state secrets”. “Let’s say a group of colleagues go out to lunch and discuss how to handle some work matters. Will it constitute leaking a state secret? Will we be arrested if someone eavesdrops and spreads the information?” he said. “I am very afraid that we can be accused [of the offence] easily.” George said he had observed an “informant culture” among his colleagues since the earlier law came into force. He estimates that about one-fifth of the employees in his department have resigned in the past three years, with many of them moving overseas. “I won’t talk so much about work with friends any more. Just focus on eating, drinking and having fun,” George said.
No Alternative for Rafah Invasion, Netanyahu Says, as Rift With U.S. Grows (NYT) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday brushed aside President Biden’s opposition to a planned ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, saying that his government would press ahead despite pleas for restraint from the United States and key allies. Mr. Netanyahu made the remarks to Israeli lawmakers a day after speaking by phone with Mr. Biden, who reiterated his stance against an offensive into Rafah, arguing that it could be disastrous for the people there and that Israel had other ways of achieving its objective of defeating Hamas. “I made it as clear as possible to the president that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Jared Kushner says Gaza’s ‘waterfront property could be very valuable’ (Guardian) As people face famine and violence in Gaza, Jared Kushner is eyeing the area’s waterfront property. In an interview at Harvard earlier this month, Kushner pointed out the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” before suggesting that Israel should push Palestinians out of the area as it “cleans up.” He added that Israel should “just bulldoze something in the Negev” and “try to move people in there.” Kushner, if you need a refresher, is the husband of Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and was a senior foreign policy adviser under his father-in-law’s administration.
Conflict, hunger and disease grip Sudan (BBC) A vicious power struggle between Sudan's army and its former ally, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, has killed at least 14,000 people, and possibly many more, since the conflict erupted in last April. Besides the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the country, there are also fears that a repeat of the 2003 genocide may be under way in the western region of Darfur. Women who escaped Darfur to neighbouring Chad have given the BBC accounts of being raped—sometimes multiple times—by militiamen. Men in the camps told us they had escaped street executions and abductions. BBC journalists in Omdurman, one of three cities that form the capital Khartoum, say that mortar shells fall daily.
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newstfionline · 7 days
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Thought of the Day
“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”—G.W.F. Hegel
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newstfionline · 8 days
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Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Poll: Most Americans say religion’s influence is waning, and half think that’s bad (Religion News Service) As the U.S. continues to debate the fusion of faith and politics, a sweeping new survey reports that most American adults have a positive view of religion’s role in public life but believe its influence is waning. The development appears to unsettle at least half of the country, with growing concern among an array of religious Americans that their beliefs are in conflict with mainstream American culture. That’s according to a new survey unveiled on Friday (March 14) by Pew Research. Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center, pointed to findings such as 80% of U.S. adults saying religion’s role in American life is shrinking—as high as it’s ever been in Pew surveys—and 49% of U.S. adults say religion losing that influence is a bad thing. What’s more, he noted that 48% of U.S. adults say there’s “a great deal” of or “some” conflict between their religious beliefs and mainstream American culture, an increase from 42% in 2020. The number of Americans who see themselves as a minority group because of their religious beliefs has increased as well, rising from 24% in 2020 to 29% this year.
NIH probe of ‘Havana syndrome’ finds no sign of brain injuries (NYT) Repeated scans of patients suffering from the mysterious ailment commonly known as “Havana syndrome” found no significant evidence of brain injury, according to an ongoing investigation by the National Institutes of Health. Two studies, published Monday in JAMA, found few significant differences in a range of cognitive and physical tests among more than 80 patients who had been stationed in Cuba, Austria, China and other locations compared with a control group of people with similar job descriptions. The new findings are poised to reignite the controversy over this now-global medical mystery, which sparked a rash of inconclusive investigations, roiled the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency and heightened tensions between the United States and Cuba. The researchers emphasized that the patients who volunteered for the study, which began in 2018, do have severe symptoms that can be debilitating.
Gangs unleash new attacks on upscale areas in Haiti’s capital (AP) Gangs attacked two upscale neighborhoods in Haiti’s capital early Monday in a rampage that left at least a dozen people dead in surrounding areas. Gunmen looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police. The neighborhoods had remained largely peaceful despite a surge in violent gang attacks across Port-au-Prince that began on Feb. 29. An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of at least 12 men strewn on the streets of Pétionville, located just below the mountainous communities of Laboule and Thomassin.
Police: Bolsonaro forged vaccine card before U.S. visit (Washington Post) Brazilian police have accused former president Jair Bolsonaro of fraud and criminal association, authorities said Tuesday morning, alleging that he colluded with others to fabricate his vaccination card shortly before entering the United States in late 2022. Days before Bolsonaro left the presidential palace in 2022 after losing to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a historically divisive election, false information was entered into a health ministry ledger to issue fake vaccine cards for Bolsonaro and his daughter, police say. Days later, Bolsonaro decamped for the United States, which at the time granted entry to foreigners only if they were vaccinated. If convicted of the alleged crimes, Bolsonaro could face years in prison.
Without realising it, Britain has become a nation of immigrants (Economist) In 2013 Lifespring Church moved from the suburbs into a former cinema near the centre of Reading. At the time, its congregation was small and not varied. “We moved in as a white middle-class church,” says Neville Hollands, a senior pastor. These days Lifespring has members born in more than 40 countries. Immigration has transformed Lifespring Church, Reading and Britain itself. The 2021 census of England and Wales showed that 10m people, one-sixth of the population, were born outside the United Kingdom. That was a higher share than in America or any large European country except Germany. The proportion is almost certainly higher today. The fact is that, asylum excepted, Britain handles immigration very well. The country manages to attract people from a large and ever-growing range of countries. Although the popular image of a migrant is a desperate young man floating across the English Channel, Britain’s foreign-born residents are frequently middle-class and slightly more female than male. They quickly get up to speed economically, and their children do strikingly well in school.
Putin extends rule in preordained Russian election (AP) President Vladimir Putin extended his reign over Russia in a landslide election whose outcome was never in doubt, declaring his determination Monday to advance deeper into Ukraine and dangling new threats against the West. Putin has led Russia as president or prime minister since December 1999. At the end of his fifth term, he would be the longest-serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great, who ruled during the 18th century. Emboldened by his sweeping victory, Putin said he planned to carve out a buffer zone in Ukraine to protect Russia from cross-border shelling and attacks. Asked if an open clash could erupt between Russia and NATO, Putin responded curtly by saying: “Everything is possible in today’s world.” He added, “It’s clear to everyone that it will put us a step away from full-scale World War III.”
Afghanistan’s Long, Punishing Drought (NYT) They awake in the mornings to find another family has left. Half of one village, the entirety of the next have departed in the years since the water dried up—in search of jobs, of food, of any means of survival. Those who remain pick apart the abandoned homes and burn the bits for firewood. Several years of punishing drought has displaced entire swaths of Afghanistan, one of the nations most vulnerable to climate change, leaving millions of children malnourished and plunging already impoverished families into deeper desperation. And there is no relief in sight.
Sri Lankan Astrologers (Guardian) The government of Sri Lanka backs a group of 42 astrologers through their cultural affairs ministry, and a key job for them is to unanimously agree on the best date for new year rituals. Well, for the first time, the astrologers are split, and while a majority backed the dawn of the Sinhala and Tamil new year on the 13th of April, a number of dissenters argue that that day is wrong and will lead to disaster. Astrologers possess legit political power in the country; a former president once called a snap election based on the advice of an astrologer (he lost), and over a decade ago an astrologer was arrested after forecasting that the president would be ousted by his prime minister.
Many hospitals in China stop newborn delivery services as birth rate drops (Reuters) Many hospitals in China have stopped offering newborn delivery services this year, state-backed news outlet Daily Economic News reported, with industry experts warning of an “obstetric winter” due to declining demand amid a record drop in new births. Hospitals in various provinces including in eastern Zhejiang and southern Jiangxi have in the past two months announced that they will close their obstetric departments, according to notices viewed by Reuters. The closures come as Chinese policymakers grapple with how to boost young couples’ desire to have children as authorities face a growing demographic headache of a rapidly ageing society.
Killing in Handan (Foreign Policy) The killing of a 13-year-old boy in the small Chinese city of Handan has caused outrage and concern. Three other so-called left-behind children, or those who are left in the care of grandparents or other relatives when their parents move to the city for work, were arrested for the crime. The suspects are likely to be tried under legislation introduced last year that lowers the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old (from 14) in some cases. The motive for the killing is unclear. Left-behind children are often seen as lacking parental discipline, and truancy is widespread. Although tuition is free up to age 16 in China, schools in rural provinces lag behind their urban counterparts, producing dropout rates as high as 40 percent in some areas—and leading to an educational crisis.
Hostage families cling to hope (BBC) An estimated 130 people taken hostage during the 7 October attacks remain in Gaza. Israel believes at least 30 of them are already dead. Their relatives—along with those captives who have already been released—are trapped in an anguishing wait. Every morning when Rachel Goldberg-Polin wakes, she writes a number on a piece of tape and sticks it to her clothing. It’s the number of days since her son Hersh was taken hostage—she says stolen—by Hamas. When we meet in Jerusalem that number is 155. On the morning of 7 October, she turned on her phone to find two messages from Hersh. The first said: “I love you.” The second sent immediately afterwards read: “I’m sorry.” She called—no answer. “It rang and rang,” she says. “I wrote ‘Are you okay? Let me know you are okay.’ None of those (messages) were ever seen.” The last image of the 23-year-old is in a Hamas video. He is being loaded on to a pickup truck, surrounded by gunmen. His left arm has been blown off. Rachel says she is always worried, scared, and doubtful. But hope, she says, “is mandatory”. “I believe it and I have to believe it, that he will come back to us.”
Israel’s war on Hamas brings famine to Gaza (Washington Post) The warnings were being sounded for weeks. The United Nations, international relief organizations and some foreign governments voiced their fears over the ongoing humanitarian calamity in the Gaza Strip. Those warnings reached a crescendo Monday with the release of new report that found that 1.1 million people in Gaza—roughly half the beleaguered territory’s population—are expected to face catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation between now and July. What makes this calamity all the more stunning is that it’s entirely the product of human decisions: Gaza’s civilian population is starving because of an Israeli siege, not an earthquake, extended drought or other natural disasters that have blighted parts of the world subject to famine. “This is the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Classification system—anywhere, anytime,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in a news briefing Monday. Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official, said more than 1 million people are at risk because they have been cut off from aid, markets have been collapsed and fields destroyed. “The international community should hang its head in shame for failing to stop this.”
At least 100 villagers are kidnapped in the latest mass abduction in northern Nigeria (AP) Armed gangs attacked two villages in Nigeria’s northwest over the weekend and seized at least 100 people from their homes, residents and a state official told The Associated Press on Monday, in the latest mass abduction in the region. The gunmen attacked communities in Kaduna state’s Kajuru council area on Saturday and Sunday, said Usman Dallami Stingo, who represents Kajuru in the state legislature. Kaduna state is where nearly 300 schoolchildren were abducted less than two weeks ago. The latest kidnappings, like the previous one, have been blamed on bandit groups known for mass killings and kidnappings in Nigeria’s northwestern and central regions.
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