Month: February 2019

Grammy-Nominated Rapper 21 Savage Arrested in US

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Grammy-nominated Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage was arrested by U.S. immigration officials on Sunday, who said he was illegally in the country and a convicted felon.

The rapper, whose real name is Sha Yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, came to the United States from the UK as a teenager in 2005, overstaying his visa to settle in Atlanta, said Bryan Cox, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Cox said Abraham-Joseph, whose 21 Savage Facebook page shows several upcoming concerts, was in custody in Georgia and faced deportation proceedings in federal immigration courts.

He said Abraham-Joseph was convicted on felony drug charges in Georgia in 2014, and was arrested on Sunday as part of a targeted operation with the cooperation of local law enforcement.

The rapper’s lawyer, Dina LaPolt, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on Sunday, but told the entertainment publication Variety that Abraham-Joseph was a “role model” who was working on financial literacy programs aimed at helping underprivileged youth.

“We are working diligently to get Mr. Abraham-Joseph out of detention while we work with authorities to clear up any misunderstanding,” she said, according to Variety.

Cox said he did not know whether Abraham-Joseph, who media reports said is 26, would have been eligible for protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, which protects “Dreamers,” young immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children. DACA does not cover people convicted of felonies.

Variety said the rapper performed as recently as Thursday in Atlanta as part of the run-up to Sunday’s Super Bowl game in the city. His most recent album, “I Am > I Was,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, the publication said.

An ICE official told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that when Abraham-Joseph was arrested in 2014, ICE was not aware of his immigration status. It only learned later that he is allegedly from the UK, the official said.

 
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Activists Rebuild Home Where Holocaust Memories Can Live On

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Last Sunday, January 27, was the day designated by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was the 74th anniversary of the day Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The camp run by the German Third Reich, located just over an hour from the Polish city of Krakow, was the largest of the network of concentration and extermination camps used to systematically murder Jews, homosexuals, political dissidents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Slavs, Roma, Poles, and the mentally and physically disabled.

Some 16 million civilians are believed to have died during the Nazi genocide we now call the Holocaust. Yet, as the event recedes into the past, studies show that today’s generations are beginning to forget.

“We’re losing that face-to-face connection,” says Thomas Harding, who is spearheading an effort to create an education center in his family’s former vacation home on the outskirts of Berlin. “One of the tasks that we have, I think, is to remind people what happened. The causes and results of prejudice, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia.”

A 2018 study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany indicated two-thirds of American millennials could not identify what Auschwitz was. A Canadian study released this year said one in five young people in Canada either hadn’t heard of the Holocaust or weren’t sure what it was.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitic attacks in the United States rose 57 percent in 2017 over a year earlier, according to the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League.

Harding, grandson of Jewish refugees from Germany who emigrated to Great Britain, is all too aware of what can happen when people forget how such tragedies happen. That’s why Alexander Haus, named for his German ancestors, has invited students to the house, which is undergoing period-specific renovation, to talk about the past and consider ways to help people bridge their differences.

“I’ve been impressed by how they’ve been able to take those lessons from the past and apply them to today’s world,” Harding says. In addition the story of Jewish persecution in Germany, the house’s story includes the hardships of World War II, of Russian occupation immediately after the end of the war, the divisions between East and West Germany, and the growing pains that accompanied reunification. Division and alienation played a role in the lives of each of the five families who lived in the house.

Hence, Harding’s vision for the future of Alexander Haus includes building bridges — not just between Germans and Jews returning to Germany, but also between those who grew up on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall, and longtime German residents now faced with an influx of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa who are seeking new lives in Germany today.

As members of previous generations fade away, Harding says the house itself can help young people internalize the lessons of the past.

“We’re very much using the lessons of the past in a very physical way,” he says. “You have this small house with its fabric still there, which can tell the stories of the Holocaust but also the period of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall went between the house and the lake. The Berlin Airlift happened here. There are so many extraordinary stories.”

“There is a very real anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia in Germany, in Europe, in North America and in the world, and it’s deeply troubling,” Harding says. That makes the support his project has received feel all the more significant.

“It’s provided this little space where people can come together and say no, we will not stand for that. . . . I think one of the lessons of history is that you need to call out when bad things happen. You can’t just stand around and watch from the outside. And that’s very much part of our work.

“We’re in our early days,” he says, noting that the renovation of the house, which was vacant for 10 years after reunification, is ongoing. French doors that open out to a view of the lake were recently installed. The historic fireplace at the heart of the home was recently restored. The home’s shutters, bearing an iconic diamond design, are still being refurbished. There is still plenty to do. Yet, German villagers and other volunteers who are helping the Harding family have noted that support for the project is high, and many visitors leave the grounds determined not to let the future echo the past.

“So,” Harding says. “Watch this space.”

More about Alexander Haus today can be found at alexanderhaus.org. For more on its past, visit https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/tec/tbp/hfr.html.
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Activists Rebuild Home Where Holocaust Memories Can Live On

ITeuLeave a comment

Last Sunday, January 27, was the day designated by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was the 74th anniversary of the day Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The camp run by the German Third Reich, located just over an hour from the Polish city of Krakow, was the largest of the network of concentration and extermination camps used to systematically murder Jews, homosexuals, political dissidents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Slavs, Roma, Poles, and the mentally and physically disabled.

Some 16 million civilians are believed to have died during the Nazi genocide we now call the Holocaust. Yet, as the event recedes into the past, studies show that today’s generations are beginning to forget.

“We’re losing that face-to-face connection,” says Thomas Harding, who is spearheading an effort to create an education center in his family’s former vacation home on the outskirts of Berlin. “One of the tasks that we have, I think, is to remind people what happened. The causes and results of prejudice, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia.”

A 2018 study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany indicated two-thirds of American millennials could not identify what Auschwitz was. A Canadian study released this year said one in five young people in Canada either hadn’t heard of the Holocaust or weren’t sure what it was.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitic attacks in the United States rose 57 percent in 2017 over a year earlier, according to the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League.

Harding, grandson of Jewish refugees from Germany who emigrated to Great Britain, is all too aware of what can happen when people forget how such tragedies happen. That’s why Alexander Haus, named for his German ancestors, has invited students to the house, which is undergoing period-specific renovation, to talk about the past and consider ways to help people bridge their differences.

“I’ve been impressed by how they’ve been able to take those lessons from the past and apply them to today’s world,” Harding says. In addition the story of Jewish persecution in Germany, the house’s story includes the hardships of World War II, of Russian occupation immediately after the end of the war, the divisions between East and West Germany, and the growing pains that accompanied reunification. Division and alienation played a role in the lives of each of the five families who lived in the house.

Hence, Harding’s vision for the future of Alexander Haus includes building bridges — not just between Germans and Jews returning to Germany, but also between those who grew up on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall, and longtime German residents now faced with an influx of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa who are seeking new lives in Germany today.

As members of previous generations fade away, Harding says the house itself can help young people internalize the lessons of the past.

“We’re very much using the lessons of the past in a very physical way,” he says. “You have this small house with its fabric still there, which can tell the stories of the Holocaust but also the period of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall went between the house and the lake. The Berlin Airlift happened here. There are so many extraordinary stories.”

“There is a very real anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia in Germany, in Europe, in North America and in the world, and it’s deeply troubling,” Harding says. That makes the support his project has received feel all the more significant.

“It’s provided this little space where people can come together and say no, we will not stand for that. . . . I think one of the lessons of history is that you need to call out when bad things happen. You can’t just stand around and watch from the outside. And that’s very much part of our work.

“We’re in our early days,” he says, noting that the renovation of the house, which was vacant for 10 years after reunification, is ongoing. French doors that open out to a view of the lake were recently installed. The historic fireplace at the heart of the home was recently restored. The home’s shutters, bearing an iconic diamond design, are still being refurbished. There is still plenty to do. Yet, German villagers and other volunteers who are helping the Harding family have noted that support for the project is high, and many visitors leave the grounds determined not to let the future echo the past.

“So,” Harding says. “Watch this space.”

More about Alexander Haus today can be found at alexanderhaus.org. For more on its past, visit https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/tec/tbp/hfr.html.
…

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Nissan Cancels Plans to Make SUV in UK

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Nissan announced Sunday it has cancelled plans to make its X-Trail SUV in the UK — a sharp blow to British Prime Minister Theresa May, who fought to have the model built in northern England as she sought to shore up confidence in the British economy after it leaves the European Union.

Nissan said it will consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced, allowing the company to reduce investment costs in the early stages of the project.

That reverses a decision in late 2016 to build the SUV at Nissan’s Sunderland plant in northern England, which employs 7,000 workers. That plant will continue to make Nissan’s Juke and Qashqai models. The announcement Sunday made no mention of any layoffs relating to the X-Trail SUV decision.

“While we have taken this decision for business reasons, the continued uncertainty around the UK’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future,” Nissan Europe Chairman Gianluca de Ficchy said in a statement.

Less than two months before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29, Britain still doesn’t have an agreement on what will replace 45 years of frictionless trade. This has caused an enormous amount of concern among businesses in Britain, which fear the country is going to crash out of the vast EU trade bloc without a divorce deal, a scenario economists predict would hurt the U.K. economy.

The Nissan decision, first reported by Sky News, is a major setback for May’s Conservative government, which had pointed to Nissan’s 2016 announcement that Sunderland would make the SUV — months after the country’s Brexit referendum — as proof that major manufacturers still had confidence in Britain’s economic future.

Nissan’s announced its plans to build the X-Trail and Qashqai models in Sunderland after the government sent a letter to company officials offering undisclosed reassurances about its ability to compete in the future.

British politicians have sharply criticized May’s Brexit deal and voted it down in Parliament.

May’s government has refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, saying the threat strengthens her hand with EU negotiators. Parliament voted last week to give May more time to try to iron out a compromise with the bloc.

Nissan’s change of heart comes just days after Britain’s carmakers issued a stark assessment about Brexit’s impact on the industry, warning that their exports are at risk if the U.K. leaves the EU without an agreement.

Investment in the industry fell 46 percent last year and new car production dropped 9.1 percent to 1.52 million vehicles, in part because of concerns over Brexit, the Society of Motor Manufacturing said.

The group’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, described the threat of a no-deal Brexit as “catastrophic.”

He says the drop in investment is only a foreshadowing of what could happen if the U.K. leaves the EU on March 29 without a deal.

“With fewer than 60 days before we leave the EU and the risk of crashing out without a deal looking increasingly real, UK Automotive is on red alert,” Hawes said Thursday. “Brexit uncertainty has already done enormous damage to output, investment and jobs.”

 
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Nissan Cancels Plans to Make SUV in UK

ITeuLeave a comment

Nissan announced Sunday it has cancelled plans to make its X-Trail SUV in the UK — a sharp blow to British Prime Minister Theresa May, who fought to have the model built in northern England as she sought to shore up confidence in the British economy after it leaves the European Union.

Nissan said it will consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced, allowing the company to reduce investment costs in the early stages of the project.

That reverses a decision in late 2016 to build the SUV at Nissan’s Sunderland plant in northern England, which employs 7,000 workers. That plant will continue to make Nissan’s Juke and Qashqai models. The announcement Sunday made no mention of any layoffs relating to the X-Trail SUV decision.

“While we have taken this decision for business reasons, the continued uncertainty around the UK’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future,” Nissan Europe Chairman Gianluca de Ficchy said in a statement.

Less than two months before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29, Britain still doesn’t have an agreement on what will replace 45 years of frictionless trade. This has caused an enormous amount of concern among businesses in Britain, which fear the country is going to crash out of the vast EU trade bloc without a divorce deal, a scenario economists predict would hurt the U.K. economy.

The Nissan decision, first reported by Sky News, is a major setback for May’s Conservative government, which had pointed to Nissan’s 2016 announcement that Sunderland would make the SUV — months after the country’s Brexit referendum — as proof that major manufacturers still had confidence in Britain’s economic future.

Nissan’s announced its plans to build the X-Trail and Qashqai models in Sunderland after the government sent a letter to company officials offering undisclosed reassurances about its ability to compete in the future.

British politicians have sharply criticized May’s Brexit deal and voted it down in Parliament.

May’s government has refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, saying the threat strengthens her hand with EU negotiators. Parliament voted last week to give May more time to try to iron out a compromise with the bloc.

Nissan’s change of heart comes just days after Britain’s carmakers issued a stark assessment about Brexit’s impact on the industry, warning that their exports are at risk if the U.K. leaves the EU without an agreement.

Investment in the industry fell 46 percent last year and new car production dropped 9.1 percent to 1.52 million vehicles, in part because of concerns over Brexit, the Society of Motor Manufacturing said.

The group’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, described the threat of a no-deal Brexit as “catastrophic.”

He says the drop in investment is only a foreshadowing of what could happen if the U.K. leaves the EU on March 29 without a deal.

“With fewer than 60 days before we leave the EU and the risk of crashing out without a deal looking increasingly real, UK Automotive is on red alert,” Hawes said Thursday. “Brexit uncertainty has already done enormous damage to output, investment and jobs.”

 
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Today is Super Bowl Sunday

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New England Patriots will play the Los Angeles Rams in Atlanta for the National Football League’s (NFL) Vince Lombardi Trophy.
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Today is Super Bowl Sunday

ITamLeave a comment

New England Patriots will play the Los Angeles Rams in Atlanta for the National Football League’s (NFL) Vince Lombardi Trophy.
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Trump Won’t Rule Out Another Shutdown in Border Wall Dispute

ITamLeave a comment

U.S. President Donald Trump is refusing to rule out the possibility of another partial government shutdown to win congressional approval of funding for a wall along the southern border with Mexico. But he also signaled strongly he plans to declare a national emergency to build the barrier without assent from lawmakers.

“I don’t take anything off the table,” Trump told the CBS News show “Face the Nation” in an interview broadcast Sunday, a week after a record 35-day shutdown of a quarter of government operations was ended. “I don’t like to take things off the table. It’s that alternative.”

But the U.S. leader said, “It’s national emergency, it’s other things and you know there have been plenty national emergencies called. And this really is an invasion of our country by human traffickers.”

“These are people that are horrible people bringing in women mostly, but bringing in women and children into our country,” he said. “Human trafficking. And we’re going to have a strong border. And the only way you have a strong border is you need a physical barrier. You need a wall. And anybody that says you don’t, they’re just playing games.”

He assailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, for continuing to oppose U.S. taxpayer-funding of the wall. Construction of the wall — and Mexico paying for it — was Trump’s favorite 2016 campaign pledge during his successful run for the White House, but he now is calling for congressional approval of wall construction money.

“I think she [Pelosi] is very bad for our country,” Trump said. “She knows that you need a barrier. She knows that we need border security. She wanted to win a political point. I happen to think it’s very bad politics because basically she wants open borders. She doesn’t mind human trafficking or she wouldn’t do this.”

Trump, ahead of the CBS interview that was taped Friday, had suggested he could announce that he is taking executive action to build the wall during Tuesday’s annual State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. But he also suggested he could also let a decision on the wall wait until Feb. 15, when funding runs out again for the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies that were shuttered.

A bipartisan congressional panel is negotiating over a border security plan, but opposition Democrats have so far offered no money for Trump’s wall and he has called the border security discussions a waste of time. He wants $5.7 billion in wall funding, while Democratic lawmakers have offered more money for other border security provisions.

Trump said Pelosi is “costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars because what’s happening is when you have a porous border, and when you have drugs pouring in, and when you have people dying all over the country because of people like Nancy Pelosi who don’t want to give proper border security for political reasons, she’s doing a terrible disservice to our country. And on the 15th we have now set the table beautifully” for an emergency declaration.

“She can keep playing her games, but we will win,” Trump said. “Because we have a much better issue. On a political basis, what she’s doing is — I actually think it’s bad politics — but much more importantly it’s very bad for our country.”

Trump touched on a wide range of issues during the interview.

Afghanistan

He questioned whether the U.S. should have invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the administration of former President George W. Bush to destroy al-Qaida training grounds after the terrorist group’s attacks on the U.S. killed nearly 3,000 people.

“Look, whether we should have been there in the first place, that’s first question,” Trump said.

Now, 18 years later, he said it was time for the U.S. to end its military operations in Afghanistan in a negotiated settlement with Taliban fighters opposing the Afghan government.

“I think they’re tired and, I think everybody’s tired,” he said. “We got to get out of these endless wars and bring our folks back home. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to be watching with intelligence. We’re going to be watching, and watching closely. But, you know you pay a big price for troops on the ground. We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on military. We’re the policemen of the world.”

He added, “We’ll come back if we have to. We have very fast airplanes, we have very good cargo planes. We can come back very quickly, and I’m not leaving [the Middle East.] We have a base in Iraq and the base is a fantastic edifice.”

Middle East

But he called Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction that were never found “one of the greatest mistakes going into the Middle East that our country has ever made. One of the greatest mistakes that we’ve ever made.”

Trump said he wants to keep the U.S. military base in Iraq rather than pull troops out like in Syria and Afghanistan “because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable and expensive military base built in Iraq. It’s perfectly situated for looking at all over different parts of the troubled Middle East rather than pulling up.”

“And this is what a lot of people don’t understand,” he said. “We’re going to keep watching and we’re going to keep seeing and if there’s trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we’re going to know it before they do.”

Nuclear weapons

U.S. intelligence chiefs last week told a congressional panel that Iran was abiding by a 2015 international pact to curtail its nuclear weapons program, an agreement Trump abrogated. The intelligence leaders reached the same assessment the United Nations atomic watchdog agency concluded after 13 inspections. Trump disagreed, however.

“I have intel people, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree,” he said. “So when my intelligence people tell me how wonderful Iran is- if you don’t mind, I’m going to just go by my own counsel.”

Russia probe

Trump, as he has often, also bashed the ongoing 21-month criminal investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election led by special counsel Robert Mueller, and whether Trump, as president, sought to obstruct it.

“It’s a terrible witch hunt and it’s a disgrace,” he said, adding that he would leave it up to the U.S. attorney general to decide whether to release Mueller’s eventual report. “I have no idea what it’s going to say.” He said the investigation “doesn’t implicate me in any way. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. There was no nothing.”

On a day when millions of Americans watch the annual Super Bowl, the championship of American professional football, Trump said he would not steer his 12-year-old son Barron to play football but would allow him to if he wanted to. Trump said his aversion to letting his son play football is because “it’s a dangerous sport and I think it’s really tough.”

“He actually plays a lot of soccer,” Trump said of the youngest of his five children. “He’s liking soccer.”

 

 
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Trump Won’t Rule Out Another Shutdown in Border Wall Dispute

ITamLeave a comment

U.S. President Donald Trump is refusing to rule out the possibility of another partial government shutdown to win congressional approval of funding for a wall along the southern border with Mexico. But he also signaled strongly he plans to declare a national emergency to build the barrier without assent from lawmakers.

“I don’t take anything off the table,” Trump told the CBS News show “Face the Nation” in an interview broadcast Sunday, a week after a record 35-day shutdown of a quarter of government operations was ended. “I don’t like to take things off the table. It’s that alternative.”

But the U.S. leader said, “It’s national emergency, it’s other things and you know there have been plenty national emergencies called. And this really is an invasion of our country by human traffickers.”

“These are people that are horrible people bringing in women mostly, but bringing in women and children into our country,” he said. “Human trafficking. And we’re going to have a strong border. And the only way you have a strong border is you need a physical barrier. You need a wall. And anybody that says you don’t, they’re just playing games.”

He assailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, for continuing to oppose U.S. taxpayer-funding of the wall. Construction of the wall — and Mexico paying for it — was Trump’s favorite 2016 campaign pledge during his successful run for the White House, but he now is calling for congressional approval of wall construction money.

“I think she [Pelosi] is very bad for our country,” Trump said. “She knows that you need a barrier. She knows that we need border security. She wanted to win a political point. I happen to think it’s very bad politics because basically she wants open borders. She doesn’t mind human trafficking or she wouldn’t do this.”

Trump, ahead of the CBS interview that was taped Friday, had suggested he could announce that he is taking executive action to build the wall during Tuesday’s annual State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. But he also suggested he could also let a decision on the wall wait until Feb. 15, when funding runs out again for the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies that were shuttered.

A bipartisan congressional panel is negotiating over a border security plan, but opposition Democrats have so far offered no money for Trump’s wall and he has called the border security discussions a waste of time. He wants $5.7 billion in wall funding, while Democratic lawmakers have offered more money for other border security provisions.

Trump said Pelosi is “costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars because what’s happening is when you have a porous border, and when you have drugs pouring in, and when you have people dying all over the country because of people like Nancy Pelosi who don’t want to give proper border security for political reasons, she’s doing a terrible disservice to our country. And on the 15th we have now set the table beautifully” for an emergency declaration.

“She can keep playing her games, but we will win,” Trump said. “Because we have a much better issue. On a political basis, what she’s doing is — I actually think it’s bad politics — but much more importantly it’s very bad for our country.”

Trump touched on a wide range of issues during the interview.

Afghanistan

He questioned whether the U.S. should have invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the administration of former President George W. Bush to destroy al-Qaida training grounds after the terrorist group’s attacks on the U.S. killed nearly 3,000 people.

“Look, whether we should have been there in the first place, that’s first question,” Trump said.

Now, 18 years later, he said it was time for the U.S. to end its military operations in Afghanistan in a negotiated settlement with Taliban fighters opposing the Afghan government.

“I think they’re tired and, I think everybody’s tired,” he said. “We got to get out of these endless wars and bring our folks back home. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to be watching with intelligence. We’re going to be watching, and watching closely. But, you know you pay a big price for troops on the ground. We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on military. We’re the policemen of the world.”

He added, “We’ll come back if we have to. We have very fast airplanes, we have very good cargo planes. We can come back very quickly, and I’m not leaving [the Middle East.] We have a base in Iraq and the base is a fantastic edifice.”

Middle East

But he called Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction that were never found “one of the greatest mistakes going into the Middle East that our country has ever made. One of the greatest mistakes that we’ve ever made.”

Trump said he wants to keep the U.S. military base in Iraq rather than pull troops out like in Syria and Afghanistan “because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable and expensive military base built in Iraq. It’s perfectly situated for looking at all over different parts of the troubled Middle East rather than pulling up.”

“And this is what a lot of people don’t understand,” he said. “We’re going to keep watching and we’re going to keep seeing and if there’s trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we’re going to know it before they do.”

Nuclear weapons

U.S. intelligence chiefs last week told a congressional panel that Iran was abiding by a 2015 international pact to curtail its nuclear weapons program, an agreement Trump abrogated. The intelligence leaders reached the same assessment the United Nations atomic watchdog agency concluded after 13 inspections. Trump disagreed, however.

“I have intel people, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree,” he said. “So when my intelligence people tell me how wonderful Iran is- if you don’t mind, I’m going to just go by my own counsel.”

Russia probe

Trump, as he has often, also bashed the ongoing 21-month criminal investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election led by special counsel Robert Mueller, and whether Trump, as president, sought to obstruct it.

“It’s a terrible witch hunt and it’s a disgrace,” he said, adding that he would leave it up to the U.S. attorney general to decide whether to release Mueller’s eventual report. “I have no idea what it’s going to say.” He said the investigation “doesn’t implicate me in any way. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. There was no nothing.”

On a day when millions of Americans watch the annual Super Bowl, the championship of American professional football, Trump said he would not steer his 12-year-old son Barron to play football but would allow him to if he wanted to. Trump said his aversion to letting his son play football is because “it’s a dangerous sport and I think it’s really tough.”

“He actually plays a lot of soccer,” Trump said of the youngest of his five children. “He’s liking soccer.”

 

 
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Head of Ukraine’s New Orthodox Church Assumes Office

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The newly elected head of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church has officially assumed office in the capital of Kiev, a month after the church severed its centuries-long ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Metropolitan Epiphanius I, 40, was enthroned during a lavish service at St. Sophia Cathedral in central Kiev on Sunday, a month after the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople granted independence to a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is running for re-election in the country’s March 31 presidential race, and his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko both attended the ceremony.

In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church spokesman on Sunday dismissed the Kiev ceremony as a “pathetic spectacle.”

      
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Head of Ukraine’s New Orthodox Church Assumes Office

ITeuLeave a comment

The newly elected head of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church has officially assumed office in the capital of Kiev, a month after the church severed its centuries-long ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Metropolitan Epiphanius I, 40, was enthroned during a lavish service at St. Sophia Cathedral in central Kiev on Sunday, a month after the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople granted independence to a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is running for re-election in the country’s March 31 presidential race, and his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko both attended the ceremony.

In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church spokesman on Sunday dismissed the Kiev ceremony as a “pathetic spectacle.”

      
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US, S. Korean Diplomats Meet ahead of Trump-Kim Summit

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Senior U.S. and South Korean officials have met to discuss an expected second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump said last Thursday that he’ll announce this week the site and date where he will meet with Kim, expected around the end of February.

Trump’s special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, arrived in South Korea on Sunday amid reports that he’ll meet North Korean officials early this week to work out details for the summit.

Seoul’s Foreign Ministry says Biegun and his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon held consultations about working-level U.S.-North Korea talks.

South Korean media say Biegun and his North Korean counterpart will likely meet at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom or in the North’s capital of Pyongyang.
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US, S. Korean Diplomats Meet ahead of Trump-Kim Summit

ITamLeave a comment

Senior U.S. and South Korean officials have met to discuss an expected second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump said last Thursday that he’ll announce this week the site and date where he will meet with Kim, expected around the end of February.

Trump’s special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, arrived in South Korea on Sunday amid reports that he’ll meet North Korean officials early this week to work out details for the summit.

Seoul’s Foreign Ministry says Biegun and his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon held consultations about working-level U.S.-North Korea talks.

South Korean media say Biegun and his North Korean counterpart will likely meet at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom or in the North’s capital of Pyongyang.
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US Sees Limitations on Reuniting Migrant Families 

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The Trump administration says it would require extraordinary effort to reunite what may be thousands of migrant children who have been separated from their parents and, even if it could, the children would likely be emotionally harmed. 

Health and Human Services Department officials said in court filings late Friday that removing children from “sponsor” homes to rejoin their parents would endanger their welfare. The officials say they don’t have authority to take children away from sponsors and that the effort would be cost-prohibitive.

The government didn’t adequately track separated children before a judge in San Diego ruled in June that children in its custody be reunited with their parents.

The American Civil Liberties Union wants the order to apply to children who were separated before June. Officials say there may be thousands.
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Australia Police Say Man in Custody After Airport Evacuation 

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A man who falsely claimed to have a bomb and menaced a woman with a knife forced the evacuation of Brisbane International Airport for more than two hours, police said Sunday. 

 

Police ended the emergency late Saturday by shooting the 50-year-old man with nonlethal beanbag shotgun rounds and arresting him. There were no injuries reported, and police said the emergency was not related to terrorism. 

 

The emergency began in the terminal’s food court when the man pulled a knife on a screaming woman and placed a metal box on a table. Hundreds of panicked travelers fled the scene. 

 

“It was a blood-curdling little scream, and she just bolted across the forecourt,” a man, who was not identified, told Nine Network television. 

 

Another man, who also was not identified, told Nine: “He had one knife to start with, then when he looped back around he pulled out a second knife.” 

 

“They were big carving knife-like things. There weren’t normal little knives, they were big,” the same witness added. 

 

A woman, who was not identified, told Nine that the sound of the woman screaming sent people running. Somebody yelled that a man was armed with a knife or gun, she said. 

 

“I just grabbed my kids, and I just ran out the door,” she said. 

 

Police opened fire with beanbag rounds after the man claimed to have a bomb in the metal box, Police Detective Superintendent Tony Fleming said. He was arrested soon afterward. 

Struck in the torso

 

“His behavior elevated such that they were quite concerned about him, and some beanbag rounds were discharged and they struck him in the torso,” Fleming told reporters. 

 

“That was important so we didn’t have someone whom we suspected at that time might have been up to no good wandering the airport,” Fleming added. 

 

The man, from Gold Coast city near Brisbane, was examined by paramedics and had “no significant injuries.” Fleming said. 

 

Police locked down the airport for more than two hours and halted airport train services. 

 

The man was charged on Sunday with contravening a restraining order, stalking with a weapon, stealing, assaulting police and making a false statement about a bomb. He has not been publicly named and will appear in a Brisbane court on Monday.
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CAR Reaches Peace Deal With Armed Groups

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The Central African Republic reached a peace deal with 14 armed groups following talks conducted in Khartoum, the United Nations said Saturday,

potentially ushering in a period of stability in the volatile country.

Central African Republic has been rocked by violence since 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted then-President Francois Bozize, prompting reprisals from mostly Christian militias. U.N. peacekeepers were deployed in 2014. 

“We have finalized a peace agreement in Khartoum, enabling the people of Central African Republic to embark on a path of reconciliation, agreement and development,” the African Union’s Commissioner for Peace and Security, Smail Chergui,  said in a tweet on Saturday.

The terms of the deal were not immediately released.

Conflict in the Central African Republic has uprooted more than 1 million people, the United Nations said, and has until now shown little sign of abating.

The talks, which started on Jan. 24 with support from the United Nations and the African Union, were meant to stem the violence that has spread across the provinces and over which the overstretched armed forces have had little control.

Peace is not certain, despite the deal. Similar agreements in 2014, 2015 and 2017 all broke apart.

Still, a government spokesman said the deal heralded a “new era” for the country, while armed groups also expressed optimism.

Abakar Sabom, a spokesman for the FPRC, one of the main groups, said: “We were able to agree on what is essential for the Central African: peace. We hope this agreement will bring back social cohesion to the country.”
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