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Since the beginning of July, various part of Lincolnshire have been plagued with flying ants - the annual phenomenon known as Flying Ant Day which isn’t really confined to one day.
The event is when male and female ants sprout wings and venture out of their nests, seeking ants from other colonies to mate with, with experts saying it’s a crucial part of the insect’s development; allowing them to reproduce.
Essentially the ant party sees millions enjoying their "nuptial flight" as virgin queens mate with males and then land to start a new colony.
The large numbers of flying ants which appear in a short space of time increase the chance of reproduction and nests generally have a single queen with typically around 5,000 workers. Queens can live for over 10 years and spend most of their lives in their nest.
The new queens will leave to mate and begin a colony of their own. Most sightings take place in July right through to the beginning of August when the weather is particularly hot and sticky and of course dry.
There were reports of flying ants in huge numbers around and about the Grimsby area until the heavy rainfall last week.
Ants serve many important roles in our eco-system, they aerate soil, cycle nutrients, improve garden fertility and control pests. Being at the bottom of the food chain, means they serve as a vital food source for birds and other small animals.
The flying ants you encounter in your town or garden are almost certainly the black garden variety, the Lasius niger and the insects pose no risk to humans either by biting or carrying germs.
The spell of heavy wet weather may bring some welcome relief to gardeners in particular as come to the end of the “Flying Ant Day” period. |
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A boy aged 11 has been injured following a collision with a car in Cleethorpes this evening.
The collision, which took place on Grimsby Road at the junction with Tiverton Street in Cleethorpes, is understood to have involved one car and a boy riding a pedal scooter.
It happened at around 9pm and the young boy involved in the collision has been taken to hospital for treatment by paramedics.
A Humberside Police officer at the scene confirmed that the 11 year old was not seriously injured but has been taken to the Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital.
Three Humberside Police vehicles also attended the scene and traffic was diverted around the section of road when the collision took place.
Crowds of people gathered in the street as emergency services responded to the collision.
The road was fully reopened by 10pm. |
A violent troublemaker who was "out of control" because of her Spice addiction viciously tried to hit a man on the head with her stiletto heel.
It was only by pure good luck that another man shouted a warning and the intended victim managed to duck, a court heard.
Naomi Chandler, 21, of Park Street, Cleethorpes, admitted threatening behaviour and arson on September 2.
David Baines, prosecuting, told Grimsby Crown Court that Chandler and Luke Leshone had a confrontation with some Polish men about a wheelie bin that was thrown towards them.
The men asked the pair to clean up the mess in Park Street but there was an argument and both hurled abuse.
Chandler took off her stiletto heels and tried to hit one of the men on the head with it but, luckily, another man spotted the move and told the intended victim to duck.
"It missed by a very short margin," said Mr Baines.
Leshone then hurled a bottle, hitting one woman's hand and smashing on the ground. He then threw stones towards the group and hurled a big concrete slab, narrowly missing a young child.
At an earlier hearing, Leshone, 22, formerly of Tunnard Street, Grimsby, was jailed for eight months after admitting affray.
Chandler later started a fire inside a house in Park Street by setting light to a footstool. Toxic smoke damage was caused.
"There was a real risk that the fire could have spread and become more significant," said Mr Baines.
Chandler was found guilty in her absence of assaulting a woman on February 12 last year and causing harm to her as a witness on May 24 last year.
She grabbed the woman, a former good friend, by her hair from behind after running after her in Kent Street, Grimsby, before dragging her to the ground and repeatedly punching and kicking her.
On another occasion, Chandler shouted: "Wait till court's over and done with. You'll be getting it over and over again."
The woman felt intimidated and scared.
Chandler also admitted using threatening behaviour in Asda on November 11 by throwing DVDs around. She also admitted five shop theft offences.
(Image: Getty Images)
Andrew Bailey, mitigating, said they were serious offences but Chandler was troubled and, at the time, was addicted to Spice, which was formerly a legal high but was "thankfully" no longer legal.
She spoke very highly of her stepfather, who was a "positive influence" on her, claimed Mr Bailey.
Chandler, who had been in custody, was jailed for 21 months and was given a two-year restraining order.
Judge Mark Bury told her: "In 2016, you were out of control as a result of an addiction to this wretched drug Spice."
He said the threatening behaviour offence was "outrageous" and "quite unforgivable".
Chandler had written a poem and a letter, which were handed in to the judge. |
It is late and I am sleepy and cold in my little casita but I just noticed that one more post would bring me up to the 1000 mark. I couldn... |
It is late and I am sleepy and cold in my little casita but I just noticed that one more post would bring me up to the 1000 mark. I couldn... |
It is late and I am sleepy and cold in my little casita but I just noticed that one more post would bring me up to the 1000 mark. I couldn... |
It is late and I am sleepy and cold in my little casita but I just noticed that one more post would bring me up to the 1000 mark. I couldn... |
It is late and I am sleepy and cold in my little casita but I just noticed that one more post would bring me up to the 1000 mark. I couldn... |
By Scott T. Sterling
Pop singer Rachel Platten is set to return with a new album, Waves, which will be released on Oct. 27.
Related: Rachel Platten Debuts New Single ‘Broken Glass’
“I loved making this album, I’ve never felt so free creatively,” Platten revealed in a press statement. “I wrote all of these songs without getting in the way, and I just let whatever needed to come through me just come. I worked out a lot of heavy stuff on some of the songs and cried on my piano at 3 a.m. some nights, but I also woke up some days and jumped into the ocean and felt amazing and just wanted to write songs I could dance to. This album is raw and it’s emotional, but it’s also fun and sweet and it’s real. It’s honestly just all of me and I am so damn proud of it.”
Among the producers on Waves include OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Stargate.
Check out the full tracklist for Platen’s new album below.
1. Perfect For You
2. Whole Heart
3. Collide
4. Keep Up
5. Broken Glass
6. Shivers
7. Loose Ends
8. Labels
9. Loveback
10. Hands
11. Fooling You
12. Good Life
13. Grace |
By Scott T. Sterling
When he’s not recording heartbreaking songs, Sam Smith can be pretty funny.
Related: Sam Smith Announces New Album ‘The Thrill of It All’
Set to serve as the musical guest on this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live (Oct. 7), Smith teamed up with host Gal Gadot of Wonder Woman fame and cast member Kenen Thompson for a pair of comedic promos.
In the first, Smith even gets to deliver the punchline, as he cheekily offers a personal makeup tip.
It’s Smith’s second time as the musical guest on SNL, following his debut in 2014.
Watch the promos below. |
By Scott T. Sterling
Count Taylor Swift among the countless musicians paying tribute to rock legend Tom Petty in the wake of his death earlier this week.
Related: Bruce Springsteen Remembers Tom Petty: ‘A Long Lost Brother’
Swift spoke to Rolling Stone about Petty’s tremendous influence on her.
“To me, Tom Petty represented a kind of songwriting I idolized: complex simplicity,” she revealed. “It said so much in the lyrics, the concepts, the stories, the message, the nuances … but always brought you back to a hook that got stuck in everyone’s head. He motivated thousands of guitarists to learn to play just because they wanted to be able to play ‘Free Fallin.” Count me as one of them.”
Swift famously covered Petty’s timeless 1977 single, “American Girl,” releasing it as a single and performing it on her Fearless tour in 2009. Check it out below. |
By Scott T. Sterling
Sam Smith has announced that his new album The Thrill Of It All will be released on November 3.
The announcement was coupled with the release of a new single, “Pray.” The song is mid-paced and emotive, matching Smith’s powerful vocals with piano and a sparse beat, and gradually blossoming with a background choir, strings and guitar. “Pray” was produced by Timbaland.
The singer also announced a large run of North American tour dates for 2018.
Related: Sam Smith Shares Emotional ‘Too Good at Goodbyes’ Video
Smith recently sat with Radio.com to discuss the new album.
“It’s a diary, but not just about me, the singer said. “It’s my thoughts and feelings on my family, fame, the world, all these different things. It’s still a diary just attacked it from a different angle.”
Sam also opened up about the role his family played in the making of his sophomore effort.
“My family have been a part of every single moment of this record, I live with my sister so every time I come back from the studio, I play her everything I’ve made,” he said. “I sat with my mom and dad this time a lot and actually my mom throws amazing dinner parties and I would go over their house and we’d all crack open a bottle of wine and we’d sit round the table and I’d play them stuff. They’re actually really honest with me and when they’re not feeling something they’ll let me know, and I’ll disagree with them.”
“My dad hated, “Stay with Me” I remember when I played it for him he absolutely hated it, so they’re very honest,” he continued.
“Some of my family’s stories have made it into the album so, which, it’s an amazing thing. The relationships my family have been in have inspired songs so it’s also their diary now as well.”
Sam Smith is set to perform at this year’s We Can Survive concert, set for Oct. 21 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Smith will appear alongside Alessia Cara, Harry Styles, Kesha, Khalid, Lorde, Macklemore, P!nk and Sam Hunt.
Check out “Pray” and the full tracklisting for The Thrill Of It All below.
The Thrill Of It All – Standard Track Listing
Too Good At Goodbyes
Say It First
One Last Song
Midnight Train
Burning
Him
Baby, You Make Me Crazy
No Peace (feat. YEBBA)
Palace
Pray
U.S. Deluxe Edition also includes:
Nothing Left For You
The Thrill Of It All
Scars
One Day At A Time
The Thrill Of It All Tour – 2018 North American Dates
6/18 – Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre
6/19 – Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
6/22 – Detroit, MI Little @ Caesars Arena
6/23 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
6/26 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
6/27 – Brooklyn, @ NY Barclays Center
6/29 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
7/3 – Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
7/4 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
7/6 – Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
7/7 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
7/10 – Duluth, GA @ Infinite Energy Center
7/11 – Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
7/13 – Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
7/14 – Miami, FL @ AmericanAirlines Arena
7/17 – New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
7/18 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
7/20 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
7/21 – Austin, TX @ Frank Erwin Center
7/25 – Monterrey, MEX @ Arena Monterrey
7/27 – Mexico City, MEX @ Palacio de los Deportes
8/14 – Saint Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
8/15 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
8/17 – St. Louis, MO @ Chaifetz Arena
8/18 – Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
8/21 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
8/22 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena
8/24 – Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
8/28 – Los Angeles, CA @ STAPLES Center
8/29 – Los Angeles, CA @ STAPLES Center
8/31 – Glendale, AZ @Gila River Arena
9/1 – San Diego, CA @ Valley View Casino Center
9/4 – Oakland, CA @ Oracle Arena
9/5 – San Jose, CA @ SAP Center
9/7 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
9/8 – Seattle, WA @ KeyArena
9/10 – Vancouver, BC @ Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena
9/12 – Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place
9/13 – Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome |
Lin-Manuel Miranda has recruited an all-star lineup for his new track “Almost Like Praying.”
Related: Lin-Manuel Miranda Unveils “Immigrants” Video
Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades, Camila Cabello, Pedro Capo, Dessa, Gloria Estefan, Fat Joe, Luis Fonsi, Juan Luis Guerra, Alex Lacamoire, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lopez, Rita Moreno, Ednita Nazario, Joell Ortiz, Anthony Ramos, Gina Rodriguez, Gilberto Santa Rosa, PJ Sin Suela, Tommy Torres, and Ana Villafañe are all featured on the new song, which will raise money for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.
Written by Miranda only last week, the original song borrows its title and instantly indelible hook from the classic show tune “Maria,” from West Side Story.
Check out the star-studded charity single below. |
By Robyn Collins
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Levi’s trucker jacket, the brand asked pop superstar Justin Timberlake to help give the staple a redesign. He shared a couple of photos of the new piece via Instagram.
Related: Justin Timberlake Models 1950s Swimsuit in ‘Wonder Wheel’ Trailer
Timberlake posted, “For the 50th bday of the trucker jacket, @Levis asked me to redesign one. I did and ever since, it’s been my favorite drinking buddy. 🍻👌🏻 #Denim #Flannel #LiveInLevis.”
The jacket features a Hank Williams patch that says, “Why don’t you mind your own business.”
Timberlake has some experience as a clothing designer, having launched the William Rast brand with Trace Ayala in 2005.
Check out the Timberlake-redesigned Levis trucker jacket below: |
By Robyn Collins
Ed Sheeran will bring his unique brand of music to Austin City Limits to kick off the show’s 43rd season on PBS, on Oct. 7.
Related: Ed Sheeran’s Girlfriend Cherry Inspired ‘Perfect’
Today Sheeran shared the performance of his hit single “Shape of You” from the program.
The Pretenders, Zac Brown Band, Angel Olsen and Benjamin Booker, Miranda Lambert and Norah Jones are also slated to take the ACL stage in this season.
Check out “Shape of You” below. |
By Scott T. Sterling
With the band’s third album, What If Nothing, on the horizon, Ohio rock band Walk the Moon has opened up about the process behind its creation.
Related: Walk The Moon Debut ‘One Foot’ Video
“The approach was just making noise, getting back to our roots of being a rock & roll band and just playing our instruments and letting the sound bounce off the walls,” singer Nicholas Petricca explained to Rolling Stone
“Sonically, we’re reaching for taller, wider, and more vast, more epic sounds,” he said. “But the lyrics are kind of the opposite. They’re much more personal and are very close to the heart, very raw.”
Despite the “chaos” that went into the new full-length, including the band canceling a tour last summer when Petricca’s father fell ill, the singer is pleased with how What If Nothing ultimately turned out.
“There’s this feeling where everything is like a bad haircut, and everything feels unfinished,” he revealed. “That moment of getting the record beyond the point of discomfort, until the record is to the point of, ‘Oh. What a relief. This feels amazing,’ is a major lesson in trust – you really are just faced with having to trust yourself and your collaborators and the producer that this deformed laboratory monster is going to, eventually, grow wings and become something really beautiful.” |
Written by Lina Tran
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD – On August 21st, 2017, the Moon will slide in front of the Sun and for a brief moment, day will melt into a dusky night. Moving across the country, the Moon’s shadow will block the Sun’s light, and weather permitting, those within the path of totality will be treated to a view of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona.
But the total solar eclipse will also have imperceptible effects, such as the sudden loss of extreme ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, which generates the ionized layer of Earth’s atmosphere, called the ionosphere. This ever-changing region grows and shrinks based on solar conditions, and is the focus of several NASA-funded science teams that will use the eclipse as a ready-made experiment, courtesy of nature.
“The eclipse turns off the ionosphere’s source of high-energy radiation,” said Bob Marshall, a space scientist at University of Colorado Boulder and principal investigator for one of the studies. “Without ionizing radiation, the ionosphere will relax, going from daytime conditions to nighttime conditions and then back again after the eclipse.”
Stretching from roughly 50 to 400 miles above Earth’s surface, the tenuous ionosphere is an electrified layer of the atmosphere that reacts to changes from both Earth below and space above. Such changes in the lower atmosphere or space weather can manifest as disruptions in the ionosphere that can interfere with communication and navigation signals.
“In our lifetime, this is the best eclipse to see,” said Greg Earle, an electrical and computer engineer at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, who is leading another of the studies. “But we’ve also got a denser network of satellites, GPS and radio traffic than ever before. It’s the first time we’ll have such a wealth of information to study the effects of this eclipse; we’ll be drowning in data.”
Pinning down ionospheric dynamics can be tricky.
“Compared to visible light, the Sun’s extreme ultraviolet output is highly variable,” said Phil Erickson, a principal investigator of a third study and space scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts. “That creates variability in ionospheric weather. Because our planet has a strong magnetic field, charged particles are also affected along magnetic field lines all over the planet — all of this means the ionosphere is complicated.”
But when totality hits on August 21st, scientists will know exactly how much solar radiation is blocked, the area of land it’s blocked over and for how long. Combined with measurements of the ionosphere during the eclipse, they’ll have information on both the solar input and corresponding ionosphere response, enabling them to study the mechanisms underlying ionospheric changes better than ever before.
Tying the three studies together is the use of automated communication or navigation signals to probe the ionosphere’s behavior during the eclipse. During typical day-night cycles, the concentration of charged atmospheric particles, or plasma, waxes and wanes with the Sun.
“In the daytime, ionospheric plasma is dense,” Earle said. “When the Sun sets, production goes away, charged particles recombine gradually through the night and density drops. During the eclipse, we’re expecting that process in a much shorter interval.”
The denser the plasma, the more likely these signals are to bump into charged particles along their way from the signal transmitter to receiver. These interactions refract, or bend, the path taken by the signals. In the eclipse-induced artificial night the scientists expect stronger signals, since the atmosphere and ionosphere will absorb less of the transmitted energy.
Using a range of different electromagnetic signals, each of the teams will send signals back and forth across the path of totality. By monitoring how their signals propagate from transmitter to receiver, they can map out changes in ionospheric density. The teams will also use these techniques to collect data before and after the eclipse, so they can compare the well-defined eclipse response to the region’s baseline behavior, allowing them to discern the eclipse-related effects.
Probing the Ionosphere
The ionosphere is roughly divided into three regions in altitude based on what wavelength of solar radiation is absorbed: the D, E and F, with D being the lowermost region and F, the uppermost. In combination, the three experiment teams will study the entirety of the ionosphere.
Marshall and his team, from the University of Colorado Boulder, will probe the D-region’s response to the eclipse with very low frequency, or VLF, radio signals. This is the lowest and least dense part of the ionosphere — and because of that, the least understood.
“Just because the density is low, doesn’t mean it’s unimportant,” Marshall said. “The D-region has implications for communications systems actively used by many military, naval and engineering operations.”
Marshall’s team will take advantage of the U.S. Navy’s existing network of powerful VLF transmitters to examine the D-region’s response to changes in solar output. Radio wave transmissions sent from Lamoure, North Dakota, will be monitored at receiving stations across the eclipse path in Boulder, Colorado, and Bear Lake, Utah.
They plan to combine their data with observations from several space-based missions, including NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and NASA’s Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, to characterize the effect of the Sun’s radiation on this particular region of the ionosphere.
Erickson and team will look further up, to the E- and F-regions of the ionosphere. Using over 6,000 ground-based GPS sensors alongside powerful radar systems at MIT’s Haystack Observatory and Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, along with data from several NASA space-based missions, the MIT-based team will also work with citizen radio scientists who will send radio signals back and forth over long distances across the path.
“We may even see global-scale effects,” Erickson said. “Earth’s magnetic field is like a wire that connects two different hemispheres together. Whenever electrical variations happen in one hemisphere, they show up in the other.”
Earle and his Virginia Tech-based team will station themselves across the country in Bend, Oregon; Holton, Kansas; and Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina. Using state-of-the-art transceiver instruments called ionosondes, they will measure the ionosphere’s height and density, and combine their measurements with data from a nation-wide GPS network and signals from the ham radio Reverse Beacon Network. The team will also utilize data from SuperDARN high frequency radars, two of which lie along the eclipse path in Christmas Valley, Oregon, and Hays, Kansas.
“We’re looking at the bottom side of the F-region, and how it changes during the eclipse,” Earle said. “This is the part of the ionosphere where changes in signal propagation are strong.” Their work could one day help mitigate disturbances to radio signal propagation, which can affect AM broadcasts, ham radio and GPS signals.
Ultimately, the scientists plan to use their data to improve models of ionospheric dynamics. With these unprecedented data sets, they hope to better our understanding of this perplexing region.
“Others have studied eclipses throughout the years, but with more instrumentation, we keep getting better at our ability to measure the ionosphere,” Erickson said. “It usually uncovers questions we never thought to ask.”
For more information on the upcoming total solar eclipse: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov
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Clarksville, TN – With the calendar changing from 2016 to 2017 this week let’s look back at the past 12 months and the accomplishments of the Governors Athletic Department this past year.
Things got rolling at the end of February when the men’s and women’s basketball teams both made the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.
Earning a stop in the tournament ended a three-year postseason drought for the men’s basketball team.
But making the tournament didn’t end there for the men’s team, as they made conference history by becoming the first eighth seed to win four straight games in four days to come away with the tournament title and the automatic berth into the NCAA Basketball Tournament.
Although they lost their opening-round game to the tournament’s top-seed Kansas, 105-79, the point total scored by the Govs was the fourth most given up by the Jayhawks last season in 38 games.
Heading the basketball individual honors was senior center Chris Horton, who was named to the All-OVC First Team and All-OVC Tournament Team as the tournament’s MVP.
He was joined on the all-tournament team by Jared Savage and Josh Robinson, who was named to the All-OVC regular-season Second Team.
For the women’s team, senior point guard Tiasha Gray was named to the All-OVC First-Team for the second straight season.
The women’s indoor track and field team had two gold-medal efforts in the OVC championships, with Kymmalett Ross winning the 55-meter dash and Dascha Hix winning the pole vault.
Moving into the spring sports, APSU’s baseball team returned to the postseason after a two-year hiatus under new head coach Travis Janssen – finishing with a 34-23 overall record, including a 21-9 mark in OVC play.
The Govs men’s and women’s tennis teams also reached the postseason, with the women’s team ending a two-year run of not making the OVC Tournament.
Heading individual honors for the tennis teams were the twin sister Lidia and Claudia Yanes Garcia – who were named First-Team All-OVC – with Lidia becoming the first women’s tennis player in OVC history to also be named the conference’s Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year in the same season.
Almantos Ozelis was a Second-Team All-OVC selection on the men’s side.
The Govs women’s golf team and softball team both placed athletes on All-OVC squads, with golf’s Jessica Cathey named all-conference, Taylor Goodley to the all-newcomer team and Morgan Kauffman to the all-tournament team.
Softball would have two players earn conference honors, with Danielle Liermann becoming the first APSU softball player to earn both All-OVC First-Team honors, while being named the OVC Freshman of the Year; while Kacy Acree was named to the all-newcomers team.
The women’s outdoor track and field team posted a solid third-place finish at their championships, with the 4×400 meter relay team and Savanah Amato (pole vault) winning gold in their events.
Finally, the spring semester saw the athletic department announce the addition of its 16th sport, with the university starting a beach volleyball team which will play its opening season in the Spring of 2017.
And finally wrapping up 2016 in the recently finished fall semester, the Govs soccer and volleyball teams made returns to the postseason, with volleyball advancing to the semifinals, while soccer lost in the opening round of their tournament to the eventual soccer champion SIUE on penalty kicks after playing to a scoreless tie.
Soccer’s Mary Ruth Locastro was named to the All-OVC First-Team, Kristin Robertson to the Second-Team and Pamela Penaloza to the all-newcomer team.
Volleyball would put together a historic season with 24 wins — the fourth most in school history — and post the fifth-best improvement in NCAA Division I by going from 10-22 in 2015 to 24-11 this fall.
And finally, football showed much improvement on the offensive side setting a school record for all-purpose yards, with 5,382, and the most points scored in nine years with 259.
The Govs also had four players earn All-OVC honors, with Jared Beard (wide receiver), Gunnar Scholato (linebacker) and Kyran Moore (return specialist) taking Second-Team honors, while Kentel Williams (running back) was recognized with a spot on the All-Newcomer Team.
About Chris Austin
Chris Austin is a graduate of Clarksville High School and Austin Peay State University. Chris is a former Head Softball Coach for APSU, and assistant basketball coach for CHS. Chris has worked at the Leaf-Chronicle, and WJZM News/Talk/Sports radio. Has also worked at the Sports Information Department at APSU, and has covered championship events for the Ohio Valley Conference and NCAA. Chris is an avid sports fan and can be found at most Austin Peay State University sports events. Web Site: http://www.clarksvillesportsnetwork.com
Email: [email protected]
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APSU Sports Information
Clarksville, TN – The Governors Club Red Coat Society was created as a “Hall of Fame” for great Austin Peay State University supporters.
Sherwin Clift will be the first APSU Athletics Hall of Famer to join the elite society, along with the late Dr. Don Luck – who served as an APSU faculty member and longtime Governors Club member – February 18th, during the Governors basketball doubleheader.
It’s only fitting for Clift to be the first dual member, because he’s that kind of trailblazer.
An outstanding athlete in his own right, Clift finished third in the mile run at the 1957 Volunteer State Athletic Conference Track and Field Championships.
Clift was hired as APSU’s Public Information Director/Sports Information Director/Alumni Director in 1960. He continued that role until 1967, and later returned as Sports Information Director from 1981-83. He also spent several years working as head golf coach (1961-71; 1978-80) and as the original ‘Voice of the Govs’ (1971-82), working 386 football and basketball games.
When Clift left Austin Peay as a staff member for a position with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office in 1984, he immediately became involved as key supporter and Governors Club member. He’s responsible for creating scholarship endowments – the Dr. Leon and Margaret Bibb Hall of Fame Scholarship and the Clift Men’s Golf Graduate Assistant Scholarship – that support graduate assistants for athletics. In 2005, Clift also played a large role in building the endowment for the Dr. Aaron Schmidt Alumni Band Scholarship, created in namesake of another APSU Athletics Hall of Famer.
In 2002, along with his wife Norma, Clift launched a successful real estate venture with Keller Williams which allowed them to play an even greater role in growing Governors athletics. The Clifts are Champions Level Governors Club members, season-ticket holders for basketball, suite-holders at Fortera Stadium and can also be found at many Austin Peay golf tournaments supporting both the men and women’s teams.
A 1983 APSU Hall of Fame inductee, Clift is probably best-known in Austin Peay circles for his tenure as the leader of the Austin Peay golf program. During the 13 seasons he coached, his tournament record was 13 championships, 8 runners-up and 12-third place finishes in 64 tournaments – 543 wins, 252 losses – for a .683 winning percentage, and a match won-loss record of 113-38-6 for a .748 winning percentage. Clift’s team defeated or tied 167 different colleges and universities; won the 1979 Ohio Valley Conference, 1966, 1970, and 1979 Tennessee Intercollegiate Championships and 1961 and 1962 VSAC championships; finished third and eighth respectively in the 1968 and 1967 NCAA College Division Championships; and the Governors finished ranked No. 15 in the nation in Golf World in 1979.
Clift was accorded TIC Coach of the Year in 1966, 1970, and OVC Coach of the Year 1979. His association with the program did not end with his coaching career; Clift’s influence has played a large role in sustaining the annual men’s golf alumni match each year.
Dr. Don Luck, who passed away in June 2016, will be the Red Coat Society’s first posthumous inductee. Dr. Luck was a Professor of Education and often served as a faculty representative during official visits for potential student athletes. Dr. Luck, and his wife Linda, joined the Governors Club in 1997, and served multiple terms on the club’s General Board.
To be eligible for the Red Coat Society, an individual must be a member in good standing of the Governors Club for at least five years, must have supported the athletic programs at Austin Peay through financial contributions or participation in Governors Club fundraisers and other events, must have supported more than one sport both at home and away whenever possible and must be recognized within the APSU community for his association with Austin Peay athletics.
A reception will be held in the Governors Club Room in the Dunn Center, 2:30pm, February 18th prior to the start of the women’s basketball contest against Eastern Illinois. The Red Coat Society Ceremony will take place prior to the men’s game that night against SIU Edwardsville. Clift will be joined by his wife Norma; son Lamar and Regina Clift; daughter Natalie and Scott Roemer; and grandchildren Bentley Clift, 11; and Tristan Roemer, 10. Linda Luck will accept recognition on Dr. Luck’s behalf.
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APSU Sports Information
Brentwood, TN – Austin Peay State University men’s basketball contest against UT Martin, January 4th, 2018 is one of seven Ohio Valley Conference contests scheduled to air exclusively on CBS Sports Network this season.
This will be the second straight season the Governors’ home contest against the Skyhawks will be nationally-televised via CBS Sports.
Last season, the network picked up the January 26th, 2017 Dunn Center rematch of the previous OVC Tournament Championship contest.
Additionally, Austin Peay’s February 8th, 2018 trip to Murray State has been picked up for air by CBS Sports Network, marking back-to-back seasons the Governors have made multiple appearances on CBS.
This marks the fifth year the league has aired games on the CBS Sports Network and fourth consecutive year the package has included seven total games.
CBS Sports Network, the 24-hour home of CBS Sports is available across the country through local cable, video and telco providers and via satellite on DirecTV Channel 221 and Dish Network Channel 158; locally, CBS Sports Network can be found on Channel 207 (CED), 303 (Charter) and 643 (UVerse).
CBS Sports Network is widely available through all major cable, satellite and telco distributors as well as via OTT streaming service providers YouTube TV, fuboTV and Hulu. Additionally, a live CBS Sports Network stream is available through CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports App by authenticating with select providers.
For more information, including a full programming schedule and how to get CBS Sports Network, go to www.cbssportsnetwork.com.
Full CBS Sports Network OVC Basketball Schedule
Thursday, December 28
Tennessee State at UT Martin, 6:00pm CT
Saturday, December 30th
Eastern Kentucky at Tennessee Tech, 6:00pm CT
Thursday, January 4th
UT Martin at Austin Peay, 6:00pm CT
Thursday, January 11th
Tennessee State at Eastern Illinois, 6:00pm CT
Thursday, January 18th
Jacksonville State at Morehead State, 7:00pm ET/6:00pm CT
Thursday, February 8th
Austin Peay at Murray State, 6:00pm CT
Saturday, February 17th
Morehead State at Belmont, 7:00pm CT
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10 Clarksville employers will on-site for interview
Clarksville, TN – For those looking for seasonal jobs, Clarksville Parks and Recreation’s Holiday Job Fair may be the solution.
The job fair is scheduled from 11:00am to 2:00pm on Saturday, October 7th, 2017 at Crow Recreation Center, located at 211 Richview Road.
Employers include: Jet’s Pizza, Big Lots, Ulta Beauty, Spencer’s, Foot Locker, Old Navy, Belk, At Home Healthcare, Hot Topic, and TeleTech.
Representatives from these companies will be on-site to conduct interviews.
For information, contact Crow Recreation Center at 931.472.3382.
About the Clarksville Parks and Recreation Department
The mission of the Clarksville Parks and Recreation Department is to provide a variety of positive recreational experiences to enhance life values for individuals, families, and our diverse culture.
The Clarksville Parks and Recreation Department offers a wide variety of recreational facilities and activities for all ages, maintains more than 700 acres of parks and facilities, provides 22 park facilities that offer a variety of amenities, including playgrounds, picnic areas, walking trails and pavilions or picnic shelters and maintains three community centers with year-round programming for youth, adults and seniors, as well as four public swimming pools
The Clarksville Parks and Recreation Department is located at 102 Public Square, Clarksville.
To learn more call 931.645.7476.
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Clarksville, TN – New this month in the Planters Bank Peg Harvill Gallery at the Customs House Museum is a collection of works by Tennessee artist Ann Nichols. The suite of small, detailed oil paintings possess a bold presence, with duel images on each panel.
Exotic birds and flowers balance delicate eggs and fruit in each piece.
Dividing the picture plane into two unequal sections, she pairs a single object or small still life with an historical art inspired image.
The sections of the painting relate to each other in either an obvious or an oblique way.
Ann Nichols is a contemporary painter who has explored various subject matter in series, finally settling on realistic still-lifes. Many of her paintings are inspired by art historical images such as Renaissance portraits, flowers by Georgia O’Keeffe, Dutch floral paintings, botanicals, Magritte’s surrealism, Degas’ dancers, and Martin Johnson Heade’s images of orchids and hummingbirds.
Ms. Nichols has a B.S., M.S. and a B.F A degree in painting and has mounted solo shows at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City; the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga; the Cobb Museum in Marietta, GA, as well as numerous galleries in the Southeast.
The winner of 4 gold medals, she was juried into the Tennessee State Museum’s “The Best of Tennessee” exhibition and her painting was purchased by the museum for its permanent collection.
In 2014, one of her paintings was included in the International Guild of Realism’s 9th Annual Juried Exhibition. In addition to the Tennessee State Museum, her paintings are in the public collections of Chattanooga’s Hunter Museum of American Art, Sen. Bob Corker’s office in the Senate Office Building, TVA, Opryland USA, Maryville College, UT Chattanooga, The Baylor School, First Tennessee Bank and the Summit Club in Birmingham, AL, among others.
Ms. Nichols has served as a curator, judge for the International Children’s Art Exhibit in Voronezh, Russia and visual arts panelist for the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts in Miami, FL.
Split Focus will be on view at the Customs House Museum through December 3rd, 2107.
For more information on above exhibition contact Terri Jordan, Exhibits Curator, at 931.648.5780 or [email protected]
About the Customs House Museum
Located in the heart of historic downtown Clarksville, Tennessee, the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center is the State’s second largest general museum. The original portion of the building was constructed in 1898 as a U.S. Post Office and Customs House for the flourishing tobacco trade. Incorporating a number of architectural styles, the original structure is one of the most photographed buildings in the region.
With over 35,000 square feet of the region’s best hands-on activities and special events…people of all ages agree – the Customs House Museum is well worth the stop!
The Explorer’s Gallery is packed with fun, learning and fantasy in Aunt Alice’s Attic, McGregor’s Market and kitchen, and of course – the Bubble Cave! Finally, get “all aboard” to see our fantastic model trains. Our volunteer engineers “ride the rails” every Sunday afternoon from 1:00pm to 4:00pm.
Regular museum hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm Tuesday through Saturday, and 1:00pm to 5:00pm on Sundays. Adult admission is $7.00, Senior Citizens and College ID $5.00, Ages 6 to 18 $3.00, and under six years and Museum members are free.
The Customs House Museum is located at 200 South Second Street. For more information, call 931.648.5780 or visit their website at www.customshousemuseum.org
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Clarksville, TN – The Sunrise Rotary Club and Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) with the help of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) gave away 24 bicycles to local elementary school students.
The students were selected by the school resource officer and school administration from their respective elementary schools. Each student was chosen because he or she best represented the spirit of their school.
RYLA is an intensive leadership experience organized by Rotary clubs and districts where young adults develop skills as a leader while having fun and making connections.
“We wanted to give back locally this year. So with the help of Riverside Bicycles and Sam Holt we were able to give a bicycle to 24 deserving elementary school students,” said Robert Huffman with the Sunrise Rotary Club.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office helped organize the event that was held at Austin Peay State University on Thursday, June 8th, 2017. The bicycles were presented in either a morning or afternoon ceremony.
“The Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the Rotary Club and RYLA for giving us the opportunity to participate in this event,” said Sandra Brandon, MCSO spokesperson. “It is an honor to help give back to the community.”
Photo Gallery
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Monday, August 14th, 2017
Clarksville, TN – Clarksville Gas and Water has turned off water service on a section of Guthrie Highway from Arkadelphia Road to Port Royal Road to repair a water main leak.
Area residents may experience low water pressure during the work.
The road is open to traffic.
The water main work is anticipated to be finished and water service restored by approximately 1:00pm.
About Clarksville Gas and Water
Clarksville Gas and Water is proud to safely and efficiently deliver natural gas, water and sewer services to the citizens of Clarksville-Montgomery County by a courteous and professional team of knowledgeable employees.
Natural gas service is also provided to Robertson and Cheatham counties in Tennessee, Christian and Todd counties in Kentucky and to the Fort Campbell, Kentucky military installation.
CGW is also home to the City Engineering Office that provides expert design and support for water and sewer system capital improvement projects.
Clarksville Gas and Water Department’s main office is located at 2215 Madison Street, Clarksville, Tennessee. The phone is 931.645.7400. Hours are 8:00am-4:30pm Monday-Friday.
For an emergency after hours, call 931.645.0116, 4:30pm-8:00am Weekends and Holidays.
For more information about Clarksville Gas and Water, visit their website at www.clarksvillegw.com
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Clarksville, TN – Clarksville Parks and Recreation will host the sixth-annual Clarksville Sportsfest in August, and all sports-minded businesses and organizations are invited to participate.
Clarksville Sportsfest will be from 10:00am to 2:00pm, Saturday, August 19th at the Wilma Rudolph Event Center in Liberty Park, 1188 Cumberland Drive. It will offer a variety of sports, athletic and outdoor activities for the entire family.
Clarksville Sportsfest will feature an exposition area for athletic and outdoor clubs, businesses and organizations. This provides an opportunity to build networks and relationships between schools, clubs, recreation leagues, teams, organizations, associations and sports-minded individuals.
Exhibitors will be provided a 10-by-10 foot booth space, including one 8-foot table and two chairs. The registration fee is $25.00 for non-profit exhibitors; $50.00 for businesses not conducting sales; and $100.00 for businesses conducting sales. All exhibitors and vendors must provide a door-prize valued at $25.00, and sports-related activities at booths are strongly encouraged.
Interested in being a food vendor? Registration fee is $100.00.
Deadline for exhibitors and vendors to register is August 11th. Registration is available online at www.cityofclarksville.com/parksrec
The cost of admission is free to participants thanks to event sponsors Academy Sports + Outdoors and Clarksville Living Magazine.
For complete details call 931.645.7476.
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Nashville Sounds
Nashville, TN – The Nashville Sounds got timely hitting and solid pitching in a 6-1 win over the Iowa Cubs in front of 5,930 fans at First Tennessee Park Wednesday night.
Matt Olson and Mark Canha crushed home runs and Corey Walter turned in a quality start to help the Sounds (33-30) even the four-game series at one game each.
Nashville used small ball to manufacture the first two runs of the game in the second. Canha walked to start the inning and sprinted to third on a base hit by Joey Wendle. Moments later, Wendle swiped second before Ryan Lavarnway plated Canha with a sacrifice fly.
Wendle was at it again when he stole third base without a throw. He raced home when Matt McBride lifted a sacrifice fly to right field to give Nashville a 2-0 advantage.
It was plenty of offense for Walter. The right-hander cruised through the first five innings without a hitch before yielding a run on a base hit by Jeimer Candelario in the sixth inning. He allowed one run in six innings and improved to 2-1 on the season.
Ryan Lavarnway and Matt McBride teamed up for a two-out rally in the bottom of the sixth. Lavarnway’s two-out single moved Renato Nuñez to second, and McBride’s triple down the left field line plated both to give the Sounds a 6-1 lead.
Lavarnway and McBride combined to go 4-for-4 with four runs knocked in to lead the offense.
Chris Jensen tossed two scoreless innings in relief of Walter, and Tucker Healy closed the game with a zero in the ninth.
Game three of the four-game series is scheduled for Thursday night at First Tennessee Park. Right-hander Paul Blackburn (4-5, 3.11) starts for Nashville against right-hander Williams Perez (0-7, 7.54) for the Cubs. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05pm.
The 2017 season is the Sounds’ 40th in franchise history and their third as the Oakland Athletics’ top affiliate. Single-game tickets are available now by calling 615.690.4487 or by visiting www.nashvillesounds.com
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Clarksville, TN – On February 25th and 26th, 2017 vendors will fill the Wilma Rudolph Event Center for the 8th Annual Home and Garden Show to share their expertise with home improvement enthusiasts and novices alike.
Professionals will be on hand to help with furniture selection, home décor and design, gardening and landscaping tips, home improvement, budgeting and more. The event will be held inside Liberty Park at 1188 Cumberland Drive.
The Clarksville Area Chamber of Commerce is pleased to once again provide a head start on a staple of the warm weather season: home improvement projects.
The eighth annual Home and Garden Show, sponsored by Furniture Connection, helps prepare attendees for projects large and small by putting relevant businesses and service professionals at their fingertips.
“The Home & Garden Show is a rewarding undertaking for the Chamber of Commerce,” says Chamber Chairman Sidney Johnson. “Matching individuals with reputable vendors helps kindle ideas and shape projects for area families. These types of improvements make our homes and neighborhoods even more beautiful while they support our local businesses. That’s a win-win.”
Show hours are Saturday from 9:00am to 5:00pm and Sunday from noon until 5:00pm. General admission is $5.00 and free for children 12 and under and active duty military with valid I.D.
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APSU Sports Information
Macon, GA – A perfect 3-0 day by Austin Peay State University men’s tennis standout Almantas Ozelis highlighted a solid day for the Governors at the opening round of the Mercer Gridiron Classic, Friday.
Singles Results
Doubles Results
Ozelis/Edison (APSU) def. Ahlbeck/Alvarez (FS) 6-2
Ozelis/Edison (APSU) def. Di Aloy/Alcala (GS) 6-3
Jiehl/Bones (NG) def. Woodham/Lorino (APSU) 6-3
Duarte/Otero (MG) def. Woodham/Lorino (APSU) 7-5
Duarte/Otero (MG) def. Kiesslich/Drobysh (APSU) 6-4
Kiesslich/Drobysh (APSU) def. Matsuyama/Vossgaetter (FS) 6-2
Notables
Ozelis will return to action tomorrow morning as he takes on Troy’s Mustapha Belcora. The winner will advance to final eight in their respective decision.
The combination of Alamantas Ozelis and Christian Edison will battle it out with Mercer’s Sam Philp and Olivier Stuart for the right to advance to the final four in the top doubles bracket.
Timo Kiesslich and Aleh Drobysh are still alive after a consolation win and will advance into tomorrow’s back draw.
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Nashville, TN – Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Special Agents have obtained an indictment for a Clarksville woman accused of stealing approximately half a million dollars from the church for which she worked.
At the request of 19th District Attorney General John Carney, TBI Special Agents began investigating Connie Parker (DOB 2-15-46) on August 18th, 2016. During the course of the investigation, Agents developed information that, while serving as Treasurer for First Presbyterian Church in Clarksville from 2010 to 2016, Parker stole approximately $498,000.
The investigation further revealed Parker manipulated accounting reports to the church’s board in an attempt to mask the crime.
The church no longer employs Parker.
On February 6th, the Montgomery County Grand Jury returned an indictment, charging Parker with one count of Theft over $250,000. Today, authorities arrested her and booked her into the Montgomery County Jail on $50,000 bond.
Connie Parker
Name: Connie Parker
Gender: F
Race: W
Address: Fairfox Drive, Clarksville, TN
Arresting Officer: Paddock
Charged With: Theft of Property
Booked Into: Montgomery County Jail
Bond: $50,000.00
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Monday, August 14th, 2017
Clarksville, TN – Clarksville Gas and Water has turned off water service on Raintree Drive from Lafayette Road to Pinetree Road to repair a water main leak.
The water outage will also affect Pinetree Road from Lafayette Road to Raintree Drive.
Area residents may experience low water pressure during the work.
The road is open to traffic.
The water main work is anticipated to be finished and water service restored by approximately 1:00pm.
About Clarksville Gas and Water
Clarksville Gas and Water is proud to safely and efficiently deliver natural gas, water and sewer services to the citizens of Clarksville-Montgomery County by a courteous and professional team of knowledgeable employees.
Natural gas service is also provided to Robertson and Cheatham counties in Tennessee, Christian and Todd counties in Kentucky and to the Fort Campbell, Kentucky military installation.
CGW is also home to the City Engineering Office that provides expert design and support for water and sewer system capital improvement projects.
Clarksville Gas and Water Department’s main office is located at 2215 Madison Street, Clarksville, Tennessee. The phone is 931.645.7400. Hours are 8:00am-4:30pm Monday-Friday.
For an emergency after hours, call 931.645.0116, 4:30pm-8:00am Weekends and Holidays.
For more information about Clarksville Gas and Water, visit their website at www.clarksvillegw.com
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Nashville Sounds
Nashville, TN – The Memphis Redbirds continued their winnings ways with a 3-1 win over the Nashville Sounds on Monday night at First Tennessee Park.
Three of the four runs on the night came in the first inning when Memphis got on the board early on Tyler O’Neill’s two-run homer to deep left field.
The Sounds came back with a run of their own with a two-out rally in the home half of the inning. Joey Wendle singled and raced home on Renato Nuñez’s double down the left field line.
It stayed 2-1 in favor of Memphis as both starting pitchers settled in. Pitching with the Sounds for the first time in over two months, Daniel Mengden put zeroes on the board for the rest of his four-inning start. He tallied four strikeouts and issued one walk.
Redbirds’ starter John Gant set Nashville down for the rest of his outing. After the three hits he allowed in the first inning, Nashville managed just two in innings two through six. Gant struck out seven over 5 2/3 innings and picked up his fifth win of the season.
Three hits for Memphis produced another run for the Redbirds in the fifth. Singles by Gabriel Lino and Alex Mejia set the table for Nick Martini who lined a base hit up the middle off Chris Bassitt to score Lino and make it a 3-1 game.
The Sounds had opportunities in the later innings against the Memphis bullpen. They had two runners on in the sixth when Ryan Lavarnway bounced out to end the inning. Matt McBride singled to start the seventh but was stranded. Nuñez and Mark Canha had consecutive one-out singles in the eighth, but Yairo Muñoz grounded into a 5-4-3 double play to end the threat.
Nashville relievers Logan Bawcom and Lou Trivino combined to toss three scoreless innings to keep the game close, but the offense never came up with the big hit.
The Sounds left eight runners on base and went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. Nuñez and Canha had multi-hit games as the Sounds out-hit the Redbirds in the loss.
The two teams begin a fresh four-game series tomorrow, but travel to AutoZone Park in Memphis to do so. Right-hander Ben Bracewell (2-2, 6.21) starts for the Sounds against right-hander Dakota Hudson (0-0, 4.86) for the Redbirds. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35pm.
The 2017 season is the Sounds’ 40th in franchise history and their third as the Oakland Athletics’ top affiliate. Single-game tickets are available now by calling 615.690.4487 or by visiting www.nashvillesounds.com
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City of Clarksville, Tennessee Housing Development Agency thank lenders for helping homebuyers
Clarksville, TN – Several local lenders and real estate professionals received a hearty “thank you” this week from Ralph Perrey, executive director of the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, for their effectiveness in helping homebuyers use THDA programs.
Earlier this year, THDA announced a new program — Hardest Hit Fund Down Payment Assistance (HHF-DPA) program — which offers an additional $15,000 to homebuyers who use a THDA Great Choice mortgage to purchase a home in neighborhoods hard hit by the 2009 national economic downturn and have been slower to recover.
“I want to say thanks on behalf of THDA for your help in explaining and promoting these programs to the homebuyers who need them,” Perrey said to the group assembled at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon.
The lenders and their representatives who gathered with Perrey, Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan and Tennessee state Representative Joe Pitts were:
Cumberland Bank and Trust: Tammy Trice and Corey La Mothe.
Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp.: Tracy Schmittou and Derek Vandlen.
F & M Bank: Yolanda Stewart, Chad Winn and Rod Hawkins.
Victorian Finance: Lisa Demonbreun and Julie Rhoades.
The Housing Fund: Angela Belcher.
The Clarksville Association of Realtors: Deb-Haines Kulick
“It’s really exciting how successful this program has been so far,” Mayor Kim McMillan said. “This is helping us renew and reinvigorate the housing market in some of the neighborhoods that need it most. This is a great opportunity for people in the market for their first home to have a larger down payment than they might have thought possible.”
Eligible borrowers who purchase homes in targeted ZIP Codes using THDA’s Great Choice Home Loan program can apply for $15,000 in HHF-DPA assistance toward their down payment and closing costs in the form of a forgivable second mortgage loan. Targeted Zip Codes in Clarksville-Montgomery County are 37040 and 37042.
Statewide, TDHA was approved for $60 million in federal funding to its HHF Down Payment Assistance Program.
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Nashville Sounds
Nashville, TN – The Memphis Redbirds clinched the American Southern Division Championship with a 12-7 win over the Nashville Sounds in front of 7,905 fans at First Tennessee Park Sunday night.
The Redbirds have been in first place in the division for nearly all of the 2017 season and became the first team in the Pacific Coast League to punch a ticket to the playoffs.
Sunday’s game went back and forth throughout the night as both teams lit up the scoreboard. Memphis put the first run on the board when Stephen Piscotty clubbed a double off the left field wall to score Alex Mejia.
It didn’t take long for Nashville to respond as Renato Nunez launched his league-leading 31st homer of the season to left-center to even the game at 1-1 in the second. It didn’t end there as Mark Canha tripled and Chris Carter singled to give the Sounds a 2-1 lead.
Memphis took the lead right back in the third as Mejia and Rangel Ravelo collected run-scoring hits against Nashville starter Chris Jensen.
Again, their lead didn’t stick. The Sounds came back with three runs in the bottom of the third to take a 5-3 lead. Franklin Barreto, Joey Wendle, and Jaff Decker had doubles in the inning. Wendle’s was his 100th in a Sounds uniform.
The Redbirds cut the deficit to 5-4 with a run in the fourth, and then scored three in the sixth to take the lead for good. Tyler O’Neill’s solo homer evened the game at 5-5, and Patrick Wisdom’s RBI double gave Memphis a 6-5 lead.
Memphis held a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the sixth when three straight hits by the Sounds made it a one-run game. Carter singled, but was cut down at the plate when he tried to score from first on Beau Taylor’s double. Yairo Munoz picked up the team when he came through with a two-out infield single to score Taylor and make it 7-6.
Ravelo gave the Redbirds some breathing room when he drilled a solo homer off the right field foul pole. Mejia’s fourth hit of the night brought in another run to give the Redbirds a 9-6 lead in the eighth.
Corey Walter was tagged with the loss after he allowed three runs in two relief innings. Every Sounds batter had at least one hit.
The series finale is scheduled for Monday night at First Tennessee Park. Right-hander Daniel Mengden (2-1, 2.21) starts for Nashville against right-hander John Gant (4-5, 4.24) for Memphis. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05pm.
The 2017 season is the Sounds’ 40th in franchise history and their third as the Oakland Athletics’ top affiliate. Single-game tickets are available now by calling 615.690.4487 or by visiting www.nashvillesounds.com
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Rain expected from Tropical Storm Nate
Nashville, TN – Tennessee Department of Transportation contract crews have postponed the Interstate 24 closure that was scheduled for this weekend in Downtown Nashville, due to anticipated rain from Tropical Storm Nate.
The next tentatively scheduled closure is Friday, October 20th at 8:00pm through Monday, October 23rd at 6:00am.
Project information, including detour maps, are available online at www.tn.gov/tdot/topic/interstate-24-bridge-rehabilitation
In 2016, the Tennessee Department of Transportation lost three workers in the line of duty. All three were struck by passing motorists. Those tragedies bring the total number of TDOT lives lost to 112. We don’t want to lose another member of our TDOT family. We’re asking you to WORK WITH US. Click on the WORK WITH US logo to learn more.
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Written by Laurie Cantillo / Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. – The discovery of evidence for ancient sea-floor hydrothermal deposits on Mars identifies an area on the planet that may offer clues about the origin of life on Earth.
A recent international report examines observations by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of massive deposits in a basin on southern Mars. The authors interpret the data as evidence that these deposits were formed by heated water from a volcanically active part of the planet’s crust entering the bottom of a large sea long ago.
“Even if we never find evidence that there’s been life on Mars, this site can tell us about the type of environment where life may have begun on Earth,” said Paul Niles of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston.
“Volcanic activity combined with standing water provided conditions that were likely similar to conditions that existed on Earth at about the same time — when early life was evolving here,” stated Niles.
Mars today has neither standing water nor volcanic activity. Researchers estimate an age of about 3.7 billion years for the Martian deposits attributed to seafloor hydrothermal activity.
Undersea hydrothermal conditions on Earth at about that same time are a strong candidate for where and when life on Earth began. Earth still has such conditions, where many forms of life thrive on chemical energy extracted from rocks, without sunlight.
Fast Facts: › A long-gone sea on southern Mars once held nearly 10 times as much water as all of North America’s Great Lakes combined, a recent report estimates. › The report interprets data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as evidence that hot springs pumped mineral-laden water directly into this ancient Martian sea. › Undersea hydrothermal conditions on Mars may have existed about 3.7 billion years ago; undersea hydrothermal conditions on Earth at about that same time are a strong candidate for where and when life on Earth began. › The report adds an important type of wet ancient Martian environment to the diversity indicated by previous findings of evidence for rivers, lakes, deltas, seas, groundwater and hot springs.
But due to Earth’s active crust, our planet holds little direct geological evidence preserved from the time when life began. The possibility of undersea hydrothermal activity inside icy moons such as Europa at Jupiter and Enceladus at Saturn feeds interest in them as destinations in the quest to find extraterrestrial life.
Observations by MRO’s Compact Reconnaissance Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) provided the data for identifying minerals in massive deposits within Mars’ Eridania basin, which lies in a region with some of the Red Planet’s most ancient exposed crust.
“This site gives us a compelling story for a deep, long-lived sea and a deep-sea hydrothermal environment,” Niles said. “It is evocative of the deep-sea hydrothermal environments on Earth, similar to environments where life might be found on other worlds — life that doesn’t need a nice atmosphere or temperate surface, but just rocks, heat and water.”
Niles co-authored the recent report in the journal Nature Communications with lead author Joseph Michalski, who began the analysis while at the Natural History Museum, London, andco-authors at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the Natural History Museum.
The researchers estimate the ancient Eridania sea held about 50,000 cubic miles (210,000 cubic kilometers) of water. That is as much as all other lakes and seas on ancient Mars combined and about nine times more than the combined volume of all of North America’s Great Lakes.
The mix of minerals identified from the spectrometer data, including serpentine, talc and carbonate, and the shape and texture of the thick bedrock layers, led to identifying possible seafloor hydrothermal deposits. The area has lava flows that post-date the disappearance of the sea.
The new work adds to the diversity of types of wet environments for which evidence exists on Mars, including rivers, lakes, deltas, seas, hot springs, groundwater, and volcanic eruptions beneath ice.
“Ancient, deep-water hydrothermal deposits in Eridania basin represent a new category of astrobiological target on Mars,” the report states. It also says, “Eridania seafloor deposits are not only of interest for Mars exploration, they represent a window into early Earth.”
That is because the earliest evidence of life on Earth comes from seafloor deposits of similar origin and age, but the geological record of those early-Earth environments is poorly preserved.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, built and operates CRISM, one of six instruments with which MRO has been examining Mars since 2006. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver built the orbiter and supports its operations.
For more about MRO, visit:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mro
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APSU Sports Information
Clarksville, TN – Austin Peay Football Fan Fest, which gives the local community a chance to meet the Austin Peay State University football team, will be held Saturday, August 19th, 2017 at Fortera Stadium.
The event will follow the Governors final preseason scrimmage, which will start at 2:00pm in Fortera Stadium. Gates will open at 1:00pm for the scrimmage and Fan Fest with free admission for all who attend.
Austin Peay athletics will have inflatables available for kids attending the event. In addition, tailgating will be permitted in the Fortera Stadium parking lot prior to the scrimmage.
Fans will be able to meet the Governors for autographs following the scrimmage. In addition, the 2017 APSU Football schedule poster will be available for free.
Austin Peay’s Football Fan Fest will mark 12 days before the Governors season opener, Thursday, August 31st at Cincinnati. It also will be just four weeks until the 2017 home opener, September 16th, against Morehead State.
Football season tickets – the best value for Governors fans –remain available with reserved seating available for $55.00 per seat while general admission season tickets are $40.00 each. Chairback reserved seats are available at $55.00 each with a required Governors Club membership. Senior, youth, and military discounts are available as well. In addition, new full-amenity field-level end zone suites are available at Fortera Stadium.
Governors fans also are encouraged to join the Govs Club to upgrade their season ticket seat location and enhance the game day experience. Govs Club members will enjoy preferred seating, parking and game day hospitality privileges, based upon membership level. Membership to the Govs Club begins at $100.00.
Fans wishing to purchase tickets to Austin Peay’s five-game home schedule, should contact the APSU Athletics Ticket Office by phone 931.221.PEAY [7328]; by reserving a ticket online at LetsGoPeay.com/PeayTix; or visit the office, located in the Dunn Center Athletics Offices, during normal business hours.
Get all the latest information on the Austin Peay Football by following @AustinPeayFB on Twitter. General athletic news can also be found at LetsGoPeay on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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APSU Sports Information
Louisville, KY – The Austin Peay State University men’s tennis team dropped a 7-0 decision Tuesday afternoon at Louisville in the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center.
The Cardinals took an early lead for the doubles point taking the No. 1 match 6-4.
The doubles point game down to the No. 3 match with Louisville’s Fredrik Moe and Clement Filho having to win the set in the tiebreaker, 7-6 (10-3), over APSU’s Alex Kartsonis and Chad Woodham.
Louisville swept through the singles matches without dropping a set to pick up the win.
The Govs fall to 2-5 on the season and will return to action on Saturday, February 18th at 2:00pm against IUPUI back in Clarksville at the APSU Indoor Tennis Courts.
Box Score
Louisville 7, Austin Peay 0
Singles
1. Nicolas Rouanet (LOU-MT) def. Manuel Montenegro (APSU) 6-0, 6-2
2. Parker Wynn (LOU-MT) def. Almantas Ozelis (APSU) 6-0, 6-4
3. Ciro Lampasas (LOU-MT) def. Aaron Jumonville (APSU) 6-2, 6-4
4. George Hedley (LOU-MT) def. Alex Kartsonis (APSU) 6-2, 6-0
5. Brandon Lancaster (LOU-MT) def. Aleh Drobysh (APSU) 6-0, 6-1
6. Sean Donohue (LOU-MT) def. James Mitchell (APSU) 6-2, 6-0
Doubles
1. Sean Donohue/C. Morin-Kougoucheff (LOU-MT) def. Almantas Ozelis/Aleh Drobysh (APSU) 6-4
2. Aaron Jumonville/Manuel Montenegro (APSU) def. George Hedley/Ciro Lampasas (LOU-MT) 7-5
3. Fredrik Moe/Clement Filho (LOU-MT) def. Alex Kartsonis/Chad Woodham (APSU) 7-6 (7-3)
Match Notes:
Austin Peay 2-5
Louisville Men’s Tennis 5-3
Order of finish: Doubles (1,2,3); Singles (5,4,2,6,1,3)
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SOFIA Science Center
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA – Researchers at the University of Texas San Antonio using observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, found that the dust surrounding active, ravenous black holes is much more compact than previously thought.
Most, if not all, large galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their centers. Many of these black holes are relatively quiet and inactive, like the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. However, some supermassive black holes are currently consuming significant amounts of material that are being drawn into them, resulting in the emission of huge amounts of energy. These active black holes are called active galactic nuclei.
Using the instrument called the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope, FORCAST, the team observed the infrared emissions around 11 supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei located at distances of 100 million light years and more, and determined the size, opacity, and distribution of dust in each torus.
In a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the team reports that the tori are 30 percent smaller than predicted and that the peak infrared emission is at even longer infrared wavelengths than previously estimated. The implication is that the dust obscuring the central black hole is more compact that previously thought.
They also indicate that active galactic nuclei radiate most of their energy at wavelengths that are not observable from the ground because the energy is absorbed by water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere. SOFIA flies above 99 percent of the Earth’s water vapor, enabling the research group to characterize the properties of the torus-shaped dust structures at far-infrared wavelengths.
“Using SOFIA, we were able to obtain the most spatially detailed observations possible at these wavelengths, allowing us to make new discoveries on the characterization of active galactic nuclei dust tori,” said Lindsay Fuller, graduate student at the University of Texas San Antonio and lead author of the published paper.
Future observations are necessary to determine whether or not all of the observed emission originates with the tori, or if there is some other component adding to the total emission of the active galactic nuclei.
Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez, principal investigator of this project and Universities Space Research Association staff scientist at the SOFIA Science Center said, “Next, our goal will be to use SOFIA to observe a larger sample of active galactic nuclei, and at longer wavelengths. That will allow us to put tighter constraints on the physical structure of the dusty environment surrounding the active galactic nuclei.”
SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP jetliner modified to carry a 100-inch diameter telescope. It is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley manages the SOFIA program, science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart. The aircraft is based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center’s Hangar 703, in Palmdale, California.
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Written by Andrew Good
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA – As global temperatures continue to rise, droughts are expected to become more frequent and severe in many regions during this century.
A new study with NASA participation finds that land ecosystems took progressively longer to recover from droughts in the 20th century, and incomplete drought recovery may become the new normal in some areas, possibly leading to tree death and increased emissions of greenhouse gases.
In results published August 10th, 2017 in the journal Nature, a research team led by Christopher Schwalm of Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Massachusetts, and including a scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, measured recovery time following droughts in various regions of the world.
They used projections from climate models verified by observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite and ground measurements.
The researchers found that drought recovery was taking longer in all land areas. In two particularly vulnerable regions — the tropics and northern high latitudes — recovery took ever longer than in other regions.
Schwalm noted that in model projections that assumed no new restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions (the so-called business-as-usual scenario), “Time between drought events will likely become shorter than the time needed for land ecosystems to recover from them.”
“Using the vantage point of space, we can see all of Earth’s forests and other ecosystems getting hit repeatedly and increasingly by droughts,” said study co-author Josh Fisher of JPL. “Some of these ecosystems recover, but, with increasing frequency, others do not. Data from our ‘eyes’ in space allow us to verify our simulations of past and current climate, which, in turn, helps us reduce uncertainties in projections of future climate.”
The scientists argue that recovery time is a crucial metric for assessing the resilience of ecosystems, shaping the odds of crossing a tipping point after which trees begin to die. Shorter times between droughts, combined with longer drought recovery times, may lead to widespread tree death, decreasing the ability of land areas to absorb atmospheric carbon.
The research is funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Other participating institutions include Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff; the University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California; the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; the U.S. Forest Service, Ogden, Utah; Arable Labs Inc., Princeton, New Jersey; the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the University of Maine, Orono; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington; the University of Illinois, Urbana; the University of Nevada, Reno; and Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama.
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Nashville, TN – The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) has issued a middle Tennessee Endangered Child Alert for the Cheatham County Sheriff’s Office for 4-year-old Lillyanna Beneke, white female, blonde hair, hazel eyes, 3′, 50 lbs. Also taken was 2-year-old Ryder Beneke, white male, 3′, 30lbs, brown hair, hazel eyes.
They are believed to be with noncustodial parents, 27-year old Cody Beneke and 27-year old Danielle Beneke, who are addicted to heroin and meth.
A court granted emergency custody of the children to the State.
Cody and Danielle have outstanding warrants and violent criminal histories. They may be driving a green Buick Sedan or white van with South Carolina plates and may be in the area of Mt. Juliet or Hermitage.
The children are believed to be in danger.
If you have seen the children or either of the Beneke’s please call Cheatham County Sheriff at 615.792.2098 or TBI at 1.800.TBI.FIND or email [email protected]
Download (PDF, 130KB)
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Nashville, TN – Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam issued this statement today regarding the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the State Capitol:
“My position on this issue has not changed – I do not believe Nathan Bedford Forrest should be one of the individuals we honor at the Capitol. The General Assembly has established a process for addressing these matters and I strongly encourage the Capitol Commission and the Historical Commission to act.”
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American Heart Association Rapid Access Journal Report
Dallas, TX – A Mediterranean diet rich in virgin olive oil may enhance the cardioprotective benefits of high-density lipoproteins (HDL—the “good” cholesterol) compared to other diets, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
High levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL—the “bad cholesterol”) and triglycerides, a type of blood fat, are associated with an increased risk of heart and blood vessel diseases. HDL cholesterol is associated with a lower risk because these lipoproteins help eliminate the excess cholesterol from the bloodstream.
“At the same time, small-scale trials have shown that consuming antioxidant-rich foods like virgin olive oil, tomatoes and berries improved HDL function in humans. We wanted to test those findings in a larger, controlled study,” Fitó.
Researchers randomly selected 296 people at high risk of cardiovascular disease participating in the PREDIMED (PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea) study. Blood samples were taken from the participants at the beginning of the study and again at the end. Participants, average age 66, were randomly assigned to one of three diets for a year: a traditional Mediterranean diet enriched with virgin olive oil (about 4 tablespoons) each day, a traditional Mediterranean diet enriched with extra nuts (about a fistful) each day, or a healthy “control” diet that reduced consumption of red meat, processed food, high-fat dairy products and sweets. In addition to emphasizing fruit, vegetables, legumes, such as beans, chickpeas and lentils, and whole grains, both Mediterranean diets included moderate amounts of fish and poultry.
The study found that only the control diet reduced total and LDL cholesterol levels. None of the diets increased HDL levels significantly, but the Mediterranean diets did improve HDL function. The improvement in HDL function was much larger among those consuming an extra quantity of virgin olive oil.
Fitó and her team found that the Mediterranean diet enriched with virgin olive oil improved key HDL functions, including:
Reverse cholesterol transport, the process by which HDL removes cholesterol from plaque in the arteries and transports it to the liver where it is used to produce hormonal compounds or eliminated from the body.
Antioxidant protection, the ability of HDL to counteract the oxidation of LDL, which has been found to trigger the development of plaque in the arteries.
Vasodilator capacity, which relaxes blood vessels, keeping them open and blood flowing.
Researchers said they were surprised to find that the control diet, which like the Mediterranean diets was rich in fruits and vegetables, had a negative impact on HDL’s anti-inflammatory properties. A decrease in HDL’s anti-inflammatory capability is associated with cardiovascular disease. Participants on the Mediterranean diets did not experience a decline in this important HDL function, the authors wrote.
Still, Fitó said, “following a Mediterranean diet rich in virgin olive oil could protect our cardiovascular health in several ways, including making our ‘good cholesterol’ work in a more complete way.”
Co-authors are Álvaro Hernáez, Pharm.D., MSc.; Olga Castañer, M.D., Ph.D.; Roberto Elosua, M.D., Ph.D.; Xavier Pintó, M.D., Ph.D.; Ramón Estruch, M..D, Ph.D.; Jordi Salas-Salvadó, M.D., Ph.D.; Dolores Corella, Pharm.D., Ph.D.; Fernando Arós, M.D., Ph.D.; Lluis Serra- Majem, M.D., Ph.D.; Miquel Fiol, M.D., Ph.D.; Manuel Ortega-Calvo, M.D., Ph.D.; Emilio Ros, M.D.., Ph.D.; Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, M.D., Ph.D.; Rafael de la Torre, Pharm.D., Ph.D.; and M. Carmen López-Sabater, Pharm.D., Ph.D.
Author disclosures are on the manuscript.
This work was funded by: Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, CIBER de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBEROBN), Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.
Additional Resources:
View the manuscript online.
About Cholesterol
Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews.
For updates and new science from the Circulation journal follow @CircAHA.
Subscribe to the Circulation on the Run iTunes podcast – a weekly overview of the issue’s contents for the busy clinician.
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Clarksville, TN – The Clarksville Police Department announces that applications are now available for the upcoming Citizen’s Police Academy (CPA) class. The class will start on March 6th, 2018, and the graduation date will be on May 29th, 2018.
They will held on Tuesday evenings for 12 weeks (not including spring break week). The CPA class covers all facets of the Clarksville Police Department’s activities, from administration to tactical operations.
Citizens are given an opportunity to not only learn about the Clarksville Police Department functions, but also given a chance to participate in activities such as police vehicle operations, firearms instruction, self-defense techniques, and use of force decision-making exercises.
The class is free of charge, and you can download the application from the link below.
Once you have filled out the application, you can return it to the address listed on the application, or you can pick up an application at Police Headquarters located at 135 Commerce Street.
CPA Application link: http://www.cityofclarksville.com/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=792
Link About the Citizen’s Police Academy- http://www.cityofclarksville.com/index.aspx?page=442
If you have any questions, please contact Officer Gregory Granderson at 931.648.0656, Ext. 5239.
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Nashville, TN – The National Weather Service in Nashville has issued a dense fog advisory which is in effect tonight until 9:00am CT Monday for the Clarksville Montgomery County area.
Visibility will drop below one quarter of a mile at times through the mid morning Monday.
Reduced visibilities accompanied with heavy drizzle will result in hazardous driving conditions at times.
If driving, slow down, use your headlights and leave plenty of distance ahead of you.
Counties under the Advisory
Stewart County, Montgomery County, Robertson County, Sumner County, Houston County, Humphreys County, Dickson County, Cheatham County, Davidson County, Wilson County, Perry County, Hickman County, Lewis County, Williamson County, Maury County, Marshall County, Rutherford County, Cannon County, Bedford County, Coffee County, Wayne County, Lawrence County, and Giles County.
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Leeds, AL – I had heard nothing but great things about this place when I announced I was going to visit. Even the bikers I met along the way down I-65 told me I was in for a treat.
They were right.
I cruised down to Birmingham this afternoon and after fighting the wind and several road projects, I pulled into the Barber Motorsports Park. It is a sprawling facility, cut out of the Alabama countryside.
It’s the home of the worlds largest motorcycle museum, which I plan to visit tomorrow, but today, I went to the race track.
I have never been to a motorcycle race, much less had access to the “paddock” area, and as a biker, I found myself in heaven. I’m still learning about the various makes and models of bikes, and I don’t have a clue who any of the racers are, but that’s why I’m here. To learn more about motorcycles, and to get a good dose of racing.
This annual event attracts vintage motorcycle enthusiasts from all over the country, and as I watched all of the vendors setting up for the weekend, I can only imagine the crowds that will be here.
The first thing I noticed was how well run this event is. From the moment I picked up my credentials, to the time I was greeted at the gate, these are some of the friendliest people I’ve met at a major event.
As I rode into the paddock, there were three levels of “stations” for all the race teams. I was mesmerized by all the types of motorcycles. The colors, the logos, the people working feverishly to get their bike ready for practice.
Today, the various classes of bikes were getting laps, in preparation for this weekend’s races. I talked with wives, girlfriends, and some “old timers” who’ve been hanging around the sport for years.
It was awesome. And this was just practice.
This property is beautiful as I watched race fans setting up their campsites, and vendors getting ready for the weekend. I just soaked it all in. The sights, the smells, the noise.
I can’t wait for tomorrow.
About Hank Bonecutter
Hank Bonecutter is a retired broadcaster and media consultant based in Clarksville, Tennessee. His career includes stints at WKDA/WKDF and WKQB Rock 106FM, WLAC-AM in Nashville. He concluded his career as owner/talk show host at WJZM-AM in Clarksville. Currently the President of Bonehead Promotions, he’s an advertising consultant and media strategist. An avid motorcyclist, Hank blogs about his travels exclusively at Clarksvillemotorcycle.com and Clarksvilleonline.com. You can follow Hank on on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/dodgintheroadkill/, on Twitter at https://twitter.com/?lang=en, and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dodgetheroadkill/?hl=en Web Site: http://www.clarksvillesportsnetwork.com/
Email: [email protected]
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Written by Andrew Good
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA – Mt. Erebus is at the end of our world — and offers a portal to another.
It’s our planet’s southernmost active volcano, reaching 12,448 feet (3,794 meters) above Ross Island in Antarctica. Temperatures at the surface are well below freezing most of the year, but that doesn’t stop visits from scientists: Erebus is also one of the few volcanoes in the world with an exposed lava lake. You can peer over the lip of its main crater and stare straight into it.
It’s also a good stand-in for a frozen alien world, the kind NASA wants to send robots to someday.
For several weeks, he tested robots, a drill and computer-aided mapping technology that could one day help us understand the icy worlds in our outer solar system.
It was Curtis’ seventh visit to Mt. Erebus, which he made on behalf of both JPL and the Mt. Erebus Volcano Observatory. He traveled with several colleagues who were studying everything from the age of the rocks to the composition of gasses emitted from the lava lake.
Ocean worlds like Europa are sure to be distinctly more alien than Erebus. Europa’s temperatures are hundreds of degrees below freezing; its ice is certain to be different than that of Earth’s; its surface is bathed in Jupiter’s radiation.
But there are some similarities that make Erebus a good testing ground for future technologies.
“We think some features of these caves are similar to what you might see on a moon like Europa,” Curtis said.
Frozen beauty
For the ancient Greeks, Erebus was an entrance to the underworld. It’s a fitting namesake: scientists have discovered that Mt. Erebus has its own underworld — though one of stunning beauty.
The volcano’s gases have carved out massive caves, which are filled with forests of hoarfrost and cathedral-like ice ceilings. Curtis said the heat from Erebus keeps the caves cozy — close to 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) — and drives warm gases out of vents at the surface, where they freeze into towers. Within the caves, the mixing of warm and cold air forms icy “chimneys” that reach toward the ground.
While pursuing his doctorate at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Curtis wrote his dissertation on the formation of these caves. He said that in recent years, scientists have also discovered a diverse array of microscopic organisms living in their interior. These extremophiles, as they’re known, suggest that life might be possible on distant planets with similar cave systems.
Tools for an Icy Moon
Curtis joined JPL’s Extreme Environments Robotics Group in 2016, where engineers are developing nimble machines that can climb, scurry and rove across difficult terrain.
Aaron Parness, manager of the Robotic Prototyping Lab, said Mt. Erebus was a good testing ground for some of the robots and instruments in development. When a member of the group is conducting field research, they often test each other’s work. It’s part of the rapid design prototyping that steers the group’s efforts.
“Field testing shows you things that are hard to learn in the laboratory,” Parness said. “We jump on those opportunities. Even if the prototype isn’t ready to work perfectly, it doesn’t mean it isn’t ready to teach us lessons on how to make the next iteration better.”
Curtis tested several unique projects at Mt. Erebus. There was the Ice Screw End Effector (ISEE), a kind of ice drill designed for the “feet” of a wall-climbing robot called LEMUR. The drill would allow LEMUR to attach itself to walls, while also pulling out samples of the ice with each step. Future designs might be able to check for chemical signs of life within these samples.
ISEE hadn’t seen much field testing before this trip — just the ice growing inside a fridge at JPL.
Another test was for PUFFER, an origami-inspired robot that can sit flat during storage and “puff up” to explore a wider area. PUFFER has driven extensively around JPL, in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco and other desert environments — but not on snow. Curtis joysticked the robot around using newly designed snow wheels, which have a broad, flat surface.
Another tool that that could be helpful for future explorers is a structured light sensor used for creating 3-D cave maps. JPL’s Jeremy Nash and Renaud Detry provided the sensor, which relies on computer vision to map the interior of a cave.
Curtis said that ice is a hard material to 3-D model, in large part because it’s so reflective. Light has a tendency to bounce off its surface, making it difficult for a computer to read that data and reconstruct a space.
“Ice sparkles, and the sparkly crystals look different from each angle,” Curtis said. “It’s like a hall of mirrors.”
Adventurous Science
Make no mistake about it — a research trip to Mt. Erebus isn’t exactly a vacation.
Curtis and his colleagues faced three large blizzards during their trip, each lasting around a week. That led to travel delays when supply helicopters couldn’t make safe passage.
The team also dealt with limited energy in a region that experiences six months of night, blocking out sunlight for solar cells. Wind turbines on the volcano are the most common form of energy, though they face their own challenges: frost builds up on the blades, causing them to vibrate themselves to bits.
But the chance to conduct research in such a desolate and awe-inspiring location is hard to pass up.
“When I smell that hydrogen sulfide perfuming the minus-25-degrees-Celsius air, there’s nowhere I’d rather be,” Curtis said.
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Tennessee Athletics Department
Lexington, KY – Admiral Schofield scored 17 points and Jordan Bone had 15, but Tennessee could not keep pace with Kentucky’s strong 3-point shooting early on, falling to the Wildcats, 83-58, on Wednesday at Rupp Arena.
Tennessee (14-12, 6-7 SEC) struggled from the floor, shooting just 34.6 percent on the night and 18.8 percent (3-of-16) from 3-point range. Kentucky shot 44 percent (11-of-25) from 3-point range with 10 treys in the first half.
Schofield scored 11 of his 17 points in the second half. He was 6-of-10 from the floor for the night and collected a team-high seven rebounds. Bone’s 15 points featured a pair of 3-pointers.
Derek Willis, who rained seven treys in last year’s UT-UK contest in Lexington, enjoyed another strong night from beyond the night, scoring 16 points and connecting on four of his seven 3-point attempts.
Kentucky took control of the game midway through the first half, going on a 18-3 run to build a 31-15 advantage. The Wildcats made five 3-pointers in that stretch with Willis and Monk draining two each. Willis was 4-of-4 from downtown in the first half. Monk also made all four of his treys before the break.
The Wildcats took a 47-32 lead in to halftime with 30 of those points coming on 3-pointers (10-of-18). Despite shooting just 31 percent from the field in the first half, Tennessee went 12-of-14 from the free-throw line to counter Kentucky’s strong start from long range. Monk led all players with 16 points in the first 20 minutes and Grant Williams paced the Vols with eight. UK prevented Williams from scoring in the second half
Four minutes out of halftime, Isaac Humphries knocked down a jumper that sparked a 19-7 Kentucky run over the next eight minutes and put the game out of reach.
Vols Double Figures
Schofield’s 17 points were his most since he tied his career high of 18 against Auburn on January 31st. He has reached double-digit scoring six times this season.
Bone’s 15 points on the night were his most since he scored a career-high 23 against Vanderbilt on January 14th and marked his fifth game scoring in double figures.
Strong From The Line
Tennessee shot 79.2 from the free-throw line, going 19-of-24 and matching the Vols’ 19-of-24 effort against Georgia on February 11th.
Up Next for UT Vols
The Vols will play their next two games at Thompson-Boling Arena. Tennessee will take on Missouri on February 18th at 12:00pm CT on SEC Network. UT’s February 22nd home game against Vanderbilt will feature a 5:30pm CT start on SEC Network.
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Written by Bob Jacobs / Allard Beutel
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. – In 2016, NASA drove advances in technology, science, aeronautics and space exploration that enhanced the world’s knowledge, innovation, and stewardship of Earth.
“This past year marked record-breaking progress in our exploration objectives,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “We advanced the capabilities we’ll need to travel farther into the solar system while increasing observations of our home and the universe, learning more about how to continuously live and work in space, and, of course, inspiring the next generation of leaders to take up our Journey to Mars and make their own discoveries.”
Solar System and Beyond
After an almost five-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet, NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit July 4. Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. Returning data and images to Earth gathered by NASA’s Space Network will keep scientists busy for years to come.
The September 8th launch of NASA’s first asteroid sampling mission began a journey that could revolutionize our understanding of the early solar system. Called the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx), the spacecraft is designed to rendezvous with and study the asteroid Bennu, and then return a sample of it to Earth in 2023.
NASA Administrator Bolden with agency scientists and engineers discussed the next steps for NASA’s next great observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, while also providing a rare glimpse of the telescope’s mirrors following completion of the final primary mirror segment in February. The biggest and most powerful space telescope ever designed now is being prepared for transport to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in 2017 for testing prior to final assembly and launch in 2018.
After years of preparatory studies, NASA in 2016 formally started an astrophysics mission designed to help unlock the secrets of the universe. Called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), it will aid researchers in their efforts to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, and explore the evolution of the cosmos. It also will discover new worlds outside our solar system — known as exoplanets — and advance the search for worlds that could be suitable for life.
NASA’s Kepler mission in May verified 1,284 new planets – the single largest finding of exoplanets to date — more than doubling the number of confirmed planets from Kepler. This gave scientists hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth. Analysis was performed on the Kepler space telescope’s July planet candidate catalog, which identified 4,302 potential planets.
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth’s oceans, and the moon is considered to be one of the most promising places that could potentially harbor life in the solar system.
New research in May indicated solar explosions may have been the key to seeding life on Earth as we know it some 4 billion years ago.
Like sending sensors up into a hurricane, NASA announced in May it had successfully flown for the first time the four Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, spacecraft through an invisible maelstrom in space, called magnetic reconnection. MMS now also holds the Guinness World Record for highest altitude fix of a GPS signal at 43,500 miles above the surface.
NASA’s New Horizons mission reached a major milestone in October when the last bits of science data from the Pluto flyby – stored on the spacecraft’s digital recorders since July 2015 – arrived safely on Earth.
In June, the mission received the green light to fly onward to a 2019 rendezvous with an object deeper in the Kuiper Belt, known as 2014 MU69. In January, NASA announced it was formalizing its ongoing program for detecting and tracking near-Earth objects (NEOs) as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). The office supervises all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earth’s orbit. It also takes a leading role in coordinating interagency and intergovernmental efforts in response to any potential impact threats. In October, a major milestone was reached with the number of discovered near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) crossing the 15,000 threshold, with an average of 30 new discoveries added each week.
International Space Station
NASA astronaut and Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth March 1 after an historic 340-day mission aboard the International Space Station. The unprecedented mission continues as scientists continue to assess and apply the data to advance NASA’s understanding and preparations for long-duration human spaceflight on the Journey to Mars.
The International Space Station continues to be the world’s premier orbiting laboratory, where humans have been continuously conducting critical research for more than 16 years to demonstrate new technologies and provide benefits to Earth. Most recently, astronaut Peggy Whitson joined the space station crew; in February she will become the first woman to command the orbiting outpost twice. By the conclusion of her mission she is set to become the U.S. astronaut with the most cumulative time in space, surpassing Jeff Williams’ 2016 record of 534 days.
During four missions in 2016, NASA’s commercial cargo partners Orbital ATK and SpaceX launched more than 24,000 pounds of critical supplies to the International Space Station, including crew supplies and equipment to support hundreds of crucial science experiments and technology demonstrations aboard the space station.
Experiments included Saffire-I and Saffire-II, which provided a new way to study fire on an uncrewed exploration craft, and research included the sequencing of more than one billion base pairs of DNA in space for the first time.
The agency’s first test of an expandable module began with the delivery to the station of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) in April and its full expansion in May. During the two-year test mission of BEAM to determine whether astronauts could use such structures for deep space missions, astronauts will enter the module for a few hours several times each year to retrieve sensor data and assess conditions.
Throughout 2016, hundreds of engineers and technicians with NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX worked to complete the final designs, manufacturing, and testing of commercial space transportation systems to return crewed spacecraft launches to American soil. While Commercial Crew Program development continues on Earth, important preparations are underway on the space station, including the delivery and installation of the first International Docking Adapter, which will enable future crews to arrive via Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.
NASA also awarded future cargo resupply contracts to ensure the critical science, research and technology demonstrations that are informing the agency’s Journey to Mars are delivered to the International Space Station from 2019 through 2024
Journey to Mars
Astronaut candidates who will join future deep space missions will arrive at NASA in the summer of 2017 to begin their training. Their selection follows the agency’s largest astronaut recruitment ever, in which more than 18,300 people applied to join NASA’s astronaut class. That’s more than double the previous record.
NASA’s Journey to Mars is moving forward with plans to send new robotic explorers to the Red Planet, while ticking off key milestones for the first flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft into the proving ground of deep space, set to launch in late 2018 from an upgraded 21st century spaceport at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Workers at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility have completed welding on the fuel tank for the SLS core stage, while we’ve successfully tested both the solid rocket booster and the RS-25 engines which will power the rocket’s journeys to space. The Orion spacecraft has been put through its paces, with multiple splashdown tests, parachute tests, and a recovery test in the Pacific Ocean. In September, the heat shield which will protect Orion on that 2018 test flight arrived at Kennedy.
In March, the agency wrapped up a comprehensive and successful review of modernization at the Kennedy Space Center. Workers upgraded a variety of systems on the launch pad and erected new platforms in the famed Vehicle Assembly Building this year in order to prepare SLS and Orion for flight.
The first flight of SLS also will launch 13 CubeSats, small satellite secondary payloads which will carry science and technology investigations to help pave the way for future human exploration of deep space. NASA currently is seeking ideas for additional payloads for the second flight and partnership opportunities for the future Asteroid Redirect Mission. These efforts build on NASA’s success demonstrating the demand and use of such small satellites deployed via the space station and other launches for commercial, educational, technology, and science activities.
In August, NASA selected six companies to develop ground prototypes and new concepts for the deep space habitats that will be needed on long-duration journeys where humans will live and work for months or years at a time without cargo deliveries from Earth.
Also in August, NASA approved the Asteroid Redirect Mission to proceed to the next phase of design and development for its robotic segment. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, sought proposals for the robotic spacecraft design, and plans to award a contract for its development in 2017.
The next two robotic missions to Mars passed key milestones in 2016, with the InSight lander getting the green light for a 2018 launch, and the Mars 2020 rover approved for the final design and construction phase.
In November, researchers using data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) determined an ice deposit beneath the cracked and pitted plains of the planet’s Utopia Planitia region contains about as much water as that in Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes. MRO also is using its hi-res camera to examine potential landing sites for future robotic and human missions. Meanwhile, Mars scientists continue to investigate the seasonal dark streaks known as recurring slope lineae, looking for what they can tell us about the presence of water on the Red Planet.
The Curiosity rover found chemicals in Martian rocks that suggest the Red Planet once had more oxygen in its atmosphere than it does now. Curiosity also made the first in-place study of active sand dunes on another planet and found a distinctive ripple pattern not seen on Earth. The rover continued to send back amazing imagery, including a close-up view of an odd looking iron meteorite and stunning photos of the Murray Buttes, which evoke the National Parks of the American West. Curiosity can now choose its own rock targets for its laser spectrometer, a first for an instrument of this kind on a planetary mission.
Both Curiosity and the Opportunity rover, which has been operating since 2004, successfully tested a radio relay in November, using NASA-provided radios on the newly-arrived European Trace Gas Orbiter to send a signal to Earth, strengthening the international telecommunications network supporting Mars exploration.
Aeronautics
NASA’s rich aeronautical research heritage added to its history of technical innovation in 2016 with advancements that will help make airplanes use less fuel, release fewer emissions and fly more quietly – and that includes working to return supersonic flight to the commercial marketplace. A preliminary design for a supersonic flight demonstrator called QueSST – short for Quiet Supersonic Technology – began in 2016 with the goal of showcasing new ways to shape an aircraft so that when it’s flying faster than the speed of sound it won’t generate an annoying sonic boom.
On a related note, having established a long-range research plan that’s in line with the aviation industry, NASA took steps in 2016 to resume designing, building and flying several experimental aircraft – or X-planes – as a means to demonstrate key green technologies and help accelerate their use by industry. It’s all part of New Aviation Horizons, a 10-year initiative included in President Obama’s budget request for the 2017 fiscal year that began October 1st.
The first NASA X-plane to receive an official number designation in a decade was unveiled this year. The X-57 Maxwell is a general aviation-sized aircraft equipped with 14 propellers, each turned by their own electric motor that is integrated into a uniquely-designed wing. The X-57 is scheduled for its first flight in March 2018.
NASA’s aeronautical innovators joined government and industry partners to unveil a new research laboratory at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The airspace technology demonstration (ATD-2) lab is part of a five-year test project aimed at streamlining the arrival and departure of aircraft and improving surface operations to increase safety and efficiency, and reduce fuel use in our nation’s aviation system.
Inroads were made on technologies that could be part of a system to safely operate Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), commonly called “drones,” in uncontrolled and controlled airspace. A complex flight campaign using NASA’s Ikhana UAS, along with virtual and real “intruder” aircraft, took place this summer to test sophisticated “detect and avoid” technologies in regulated national airspace.
April saw the first and largest demonstration of its kind when NASA engineers and operators from the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) six UAS test sites across the country flew 22 drones simultaneously to assess rural operations of NASA’s UAS traffic management (UTM) research platform.
With an eye to considering revolutionary solutions to tomorrow’s challenges, NASA selected five green technology concepts for study that include research in alternative fuel cells, using 3-D printing to increase electric motor output, the use of lithium-air batteries for energy storage, new mechanisms for changing the shape of an aircraft wing in flight, and the use of a lightweight material called aerogel in the design and development of aircraft antenna.
Earth
This year, new Earth science missions got underway to enable studies that will unravel the complexities of our planet from the highest reaches of Earth’s atmosphere to its core. NASA joined with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and European partners in January to launch an oceanography satellite mission that will continue a nearly quarter-century record of tracking global sea level rise.
Data from the Jason-3 mission will improve weather, climate and ocean forecasts, including helping NOAA’s National Weather Service and other global weather and environmental forecast agencies more accurately forecast the strength of tropical cyclones.
In November, NASA successfully launched for NOAA the first in a new series of highly advanced geostationary weather satellites called Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R. GOES-R will boost the nation’s weather observation capabilities, leading to more accurate and timely forecasts, watches and warnings.
NASA also is pushing the envelope on a new technology to advance our understanding of hurricanes worldwide. The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission launched December 15th. It’s a unique small satellite constellation that will help improve hurricane intensity, track, and storm surge forecasts.
In 2017, NASA will launch two Earth-observing instruments to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s ongoing use of the orbiting space laboratory to study our changing planet. The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) from NASA’s Langley Research Center will give NASA a new way to monitor Earth’s protective ozone layer and document its ongoing recovery.
NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin satellites, launched in 2002, have since provided the first tool capable of quantifying land liquid water storage trends. New measurements announced in February from the mission allowed researchers for the first time to determine how much water is being stored on land that would otherwise have added to sea level rise as the result of climate change.
NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development expanded the SERVIR network of environmental monitoring centers they support this year in developing countries to West Africa.
Technology
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate selected three companies for in-space robotic manufacturing and assembly projects. The projects will mature systems concepts and technologies that could revolutionize the way we design and deploy spacecraft and large space structures in low-Earth orbit and beyond, such as additive manufacturing, robotics, and autonomy to enable manufacturing and assembling spacecraft structural systems in-orbit.
NASA’s Solar Electric Propulsion project is developing critical technologies to enable safer and more cost-effective space travel to destinations, such as Mars and asteroids. In April 2016, a commercial vendor, Aerojet Rocketdyne, was selected for a three-year contract to develop major components for a flight propulsion system, including delivering four units to be employed in an upcoming flight demonstration mission.
In July, NASA’s Game Changing Development program successfully launched a self-contained, wax-based heat exchanger to the International Space Station. This new exchanger could help offset heat and better regulate temperatures experienced by spacecraft, such as Orion. The goal is to provide in-space performance data on this flight-proven phase change material heat exchanger in order to be considered for use on NASA’s Exploration Mission-2, the first crewed mission on Orion and the Space Launch System rocket.
NASA’s Technology Transfer program continued in 2016 to share the agency’s technology with industry, academia and other government agencies at an unprecedented rate, making it simpler and faster for users to access the benefits of NASA’s investments in aerospace research.
NASA’s patent gift initiative in May released dozens of patented agency technologies into the public domain, making its government-developed technologies freely available for unrestricted commercial use. And a searchable database now is online that catalogues thousands of formerly patented NASA technologies freely available for anyone to use.
Public Engagement
By engaging in public events, including South by Southwest; the USA Science and Engineering Festival; Essence Festival; Chicago Air and Water Show; Star Trek 50th Anniversary: Mission New York; and nationwide Earth Day activities, more than two million people this year had the chance to interact with representatives of America’s space agency.
More than 400 million people were reached through NASA’s use of social media during these events.
NASA’s globally popular website, NASA.gov, was honored again in 2016 with the People’s Voice award for best government website at the Webby Awards. The popular vote was the eighth People’s Voice award for the site, and after 2015’s redesign, it was the fourth different design for which NASA has won. Traffic to the site continued to increase steadily, rising 20 percent over 2015 numbers to just more than 300,000 visits per day. The site also continues to receive customer satisfaction ratings that put it near the top of all government websites.
In addition to NASA TV, the agency also broadcasted its first rocket launch on Facebook Live, reaching more than 800,000 people. While in orbit aboard the International Space Station, #YearInSpace astronaut Scott Kelly hosted NASA’s first Tweetchat, Reddit AMA, Tumblr Answer Time, and Facebook Q&A from space. After his return, he hosted a Facebook Live and the agency kicked off its official presence on Snapchat.
This month, NASA officially launched Pinterest and GIPHY accounts. The agency also hosted 15 NASA Socials, bringing together more than 1,000 followers who engage with NASA via social media for unique in-person experiences of exploration and discovery.
Citizen Science, Prizes and Challenges
In 2016, NASA launched 28 challenges with almost 122,000 participants, received over 5,000 submissions, and provided a total of $1.2 million in cash awards. Eight NASA citizen scientists also were recognized as co-authors on a peer-reviewed paper. The agency launched a new GLOBE Observer app for citizen scientists to track changes in their local environment, and a way for the public to participate in the exploration of our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter.
NASA’s partnership with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ran two successful Future Engineers 3-D printed design competitions for students, the Star Trek Replicator and the Think Outside the Box challenges. This summer, the winner of the 2014 Space Tool Design Future Engineers challenge saw his multipurpose tool design printed onboard the space station. NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) successfully conducted seven NASA Tournament Lab challenges and finally saw the crowd-developed ISS Food Intake Tracker successfully deployed on the space station iPads for use by astronauts.
NASA’s Centennial Challenges program launched two new competitions: the Vascular Tissue challenge uses regenerative medicine to help humans survive long-term space travel, and the Space Robotics challenge is working to build robots that could help humans during the journey to Mars. NASA also awarded $750,000 to West Virginia University for winning the Sample Robot Return challenge, and the Cube Quest challenge awarded a total of $300,000 to the highest-scoring teams in two ground tournaments.
STEM Education Collaboration
NASA continued its work with other federal agencies, industry partners and academia to provide to students and teachers throughout the United States unique and compelling opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. This year, NASA awarded approximately $13 million to 12 informal education organizations to help inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The agency also continued its support of students through programs like NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project, and awarded scholarships and fellowships to 111 students, including over $800,000 for 14 students through the Aeronautics Scholarships and Advanced STEM Training and Research Fellowships program. NASA also offered opportunities for 1734 students to intern at NASA facilities across the country.
As part of NASA’s effort to inspire and educate the next generation of scientists, mathematicians and explorers, and to honor the story of African-American women who broke barriers at NASA and in 1960s society, the Office of Education created a Modern Figures toolkit for educators teaching grades K-12, and hosted a Digital Learning Network event December 1st at NASA’s Langley Research Center to tell the story behind the story of the upcoming movie Hidden Figures.
For more about NASA’s missions, research and discoveries, visit: http://www.nasa.gov
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Horse Owners Urged to Take Precautions
Nashville, TN – The Tennessee state veterinarian has announced three new cases of horses sickened by viruses that infect the blood.
A horse in Davidson County and a horse in Knox County recently tested positive for West Nile Virus (WNV). A horse in Bedford County tested positive for equine infectious anemia (EIA). Sick horses cannot directly infect people with WNV or EIA.
“We think about the summer as being bad for biting insects, but the risk carries well into the fall,” State Veterinarian Dr. Charles Hatcher said. “Horse owners need to be vigilant, take preventive measures, and practice good animal husbandry to protect their livestock year-round.”
For WNV, mosquitoes and other biting insects are responsible for transmission. Symptoms in horses may include fever, weakness, loss of appetite, or convulsions. The illness is treatable and the WNV vaccine for equines is particularly effective.
EIA is commonly transmitted through biting insects or sharing needles. Symptoms in horses may include fever, weakness, swelling, loss of appetite, or colic. However, an infected horse may not show any clinical signs. There is no treatment or vaccine. Once infected, a horse must be permanently quarantined or euthanized. State law requires an annual Coggins test to check for the presence of EIA before any horse is transported from its home farm to a different location.
Dr. Hatcher advises horse owners to consult with their veterinarians to establish a schedule for vaccines and Coggins tests.
Other tips include:
Avoid co-mingling your horses with other, unfamiliar horses.
Never share needles, dental, or surgical equipment among different animals.
Eliminate standing water sources where insects may gather and breed.
Manage manure and disposal.
Apply fly sprays and insect repellants as needed.
The C. E. Kord Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory now offers a full line of equine disease testing, including WNV, EIA, equine herpes virus (EHV), equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM), eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), and equine influenza virus (EIV). Contact your veterinarian for more information.
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Clarksville, TN – The Customs House Museum and Cultural Center is located in historic downtown Clarksville, Tennessee. Come explore an entire city block featuring large gallery spaces filled with fine art, science and history.
Some of the events in January at the Museum are: Cut: An Invitational Exhibition, Christmas Town, Portraits of David Iacovazzi‐Pau, Slave and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation, and Utility & Beauty: The Glass of Emmanuel Studio.
Exhibits
Cut: An Invitational Exhibition
November 4th – January 16th
Jostens Gallery
This exhibit features work by several artists, all of whom cut materials such as paper, fabric, and aluminum to create their art.
Christmas Town
November 15th – January 22nd
Memory Lane
Hundreds of porcelain pieces recently donated by the Drye family make up a large display for Christmas Town! There are moving parts and lights, and even a model train making its way through the village.
Portraits of David Iacovazzi‐Pau
January 3rd – January 29th
Peg Harvill Gallery
Born in Luxembourg, David Iacovazzi‐Pau settled in Louisville, Kentucky where he explores portraiture through paintings and works on paper.
Tennessee Watercolor Society Traveling Exhibition
December 1st – February 3rd
Kimbrough Gallery
A selection of the juried works from the 35th Biennial Exhibition makes its way across Tennessee as a traveling exhibit. The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center is the last stop, making this your last chance to see this gathering of watercolor work.
Slave and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation
January 12th – February 27th
Orgain and Bruner Galleries
Wessyngton Plantation, Located in Robertson County, Tennessee, was comprised of 13,000 acres with an enslaved labor force of 274 African Americans in 1860. The exhibit, funded in part by a grant from Humanities Tennessee, tells the story of one of the largest tobacco plantations in the country and highlights the diversity and complexity of the slaves’ experience.
Utility & Beauty: The Glass of Emmanuel Studio
January 12th – March 5th
Crouch Gallery
This exhibit showcases projects from the Emmanuel Stained Glass Studio, Inc. in Nashville Tennessee, one of most highly respected studios in the United States for both restoration and new commissions.
“Her Honeybunch Sweetie Pie is Gone”
December 6th – March 12th
Kimbrough Gallery
Now Editor Emeritus at RATTLE, a literary journal, she previously served on the editorial board at Curbstone Press. She lives in East Nashville, TN with her husband artist Eric L Hansen and their two cats, Caylie and Tennyson.
Activities
Free Family Day: “All Aboard!”
Saturday, January 14th, 10:00am – 4:00pm
Today’s activities highlight our very popular model train exhibit. We will make toilet paper tube trains and other train-related crafts, read some stories, and take the model train scavenger hunt challenge. The trains will run 10:00am–12:00pm & 2:00pm–3:00pm.
All activities are free. For more information contact Ms. Sue at [email protected] or 931.648.5780.
Children’s Art Room Renamed the Family Art Studio
In addition to the basic art supplies (crayons, paper, scissors and the ever-popular toilet paper tubes) there are also materials for specific projects and activities. Visit the Family Art Studio in January for some train-themed craft ideas or to explore your own art designs!
The Family Art Studio has a new exhibit case featuring objects from the museum’s collection, as well as some of Ms. Sue’s collectibles. Look for train-related objects this month!
Keep an eye out for more craft themes, related exhibits, and art programs in the months to come! All activities are free with your museum membership. Non-members pay regular admission fees.
For more information contact Ms. Sue at [email protected] or 931.648.5780.
Reading by Carr Johnson
Saturday, January 21st, 2:00pm
Program is free with paid museum admission. In conjunction with the exhibition Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation.
The records found in the exhibit Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation were researched by a descendent of the slaves, John F. Baker, Jr. of Springfield, TN. His years of research culminated in the book “The Washingtons of Wessyngton Planation”.
Throughout the book, Mr. Baker mentions Horace Carr, a slave preacher and the great, great, great grandfather of Carr Johnson, a Clarksville resident. Mr. Johnson will be at Customs House to read from a book of his own family’s history in Tennessee, “Pioneer Colored Christian”.
On February 5th at 2:00pm, Mr. Johnson will do a second reading as well as introduce the featured speaker of the day, John F. Baker, Jr. who will be giving a power point presentation and book signing.
Wax Resist Watercolor Painting
Saturday, January 21st, 10:00am–11:00am
Enjoy the Tennessee Watercolor Traveling Exhibition and stop by the Family Art Studio to try your hand at water color painting! In this exciting activity, we’ll be using crayons to learn about the wax resist technique, which uses wax crayons to create textures and block paint from certain areas of the paper when painting.
This activity is appropriate for ages 2 and up. Free with paid admission or museum membership.
8th Annual Champagne & Chocolate Fundraiser
Thursday, January 26th, 5:30pm
Tickets are $50.00 per person
This elegant and highly popular event features wines and champagne, along with delectable hors d’oeuvres and scrumptious desserts. Live music will set the mood for active bidding in the evening’s silent auction. A new addition to this year’s event (and just in time for selecting that unique Valentine’s Day gift) is a companion sale of select antique and estate jewelry.
Mr. Elliott Herzlich of Elliott’s Jewelers and his associate will be on hand to speak with guests about the approximately two dozen, fully authenticated pieces of exquisite jewelry offered in this one-time opportunity. Proceeds from the event, silent auction and jewelry sale go towards supporting the Museum’s programs.
Saying the Unsayable: Writers Workshop with Stellasue Lee, Ph.D.
Saturday, January 28th, 10:00am–4:00pm
Tickets are sold at the door: $30.00 for general public; $25.00 for Museum Members
Journal writing is the key to a door of the subconscious. It is how one discovers what they are thinking/feeling. This kind of writing is about reaching into the mid-section and exposing what lies within. It is one of the oldest methods of self-exploration and expression.
Join Pulitzer Prize nominated author Stellasue Lee for this engaging workshop. In conjunction with the exhibit Her Honeybunch Sweetie Pie is Gone.
Students should bring a notebook and pen, as well as their lunch. R.S.V.P. by Thursday, January 26th to Terri Jordan, Curator at 931.648.5780 or [email protected]
Closings
The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center will be closed Monday, January 16th for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
About the Customs House Museum
Located in the heart of historic downtown Clarksville, Tennessee, the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center is the State’s second largest general museum. The original portion of the building was constructed in 1898 as a U.S. Post Office and Customs House for the flourishing tobacco trade. Incorporating a number of architectural styles, the original structure is one of the most photographed buildings in the region.
With over 35,000 square feet of the region’s best hands-on activities and special events…people of all ages agree – the Customs House Museum is well worth the stop!
The Explorer’s Gallery is packed with fun, learning and fantasy in Aunt Alice’s Attic, McGregor’s Market and kitchen, and of course – the Bubble Cave! Finally, get “all aboard” to see our fantastic model trains. Our volunteer engineers “ride the rails” every Sunday afternoon from 1:00pm to 4:00pm.
Regular museum hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm Tuesday through Saturday, and 1:00pm to 5:00pm on Sundays. Adult admission is $7.00, Senior Citizens and College ID $5.00, Ages 6 to 18 $3.00, and under six years and Museum members are free.
The Customs House Museum is located at 200 South Second Street. For more information, call 931.648.5780 or visit their website at www.customshousemuseum.org
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APSU Sports Information
Clarksville, TN – The Austin Peay State University women’s soccer team came back from a one-goal deficit to tie Southeast Missouri, Friday, night extending their unbeaten streak at home to seven matches.
Austin Peay (7-5-2) came out strong offensively, looking to building from the back and catch the high backline of Southeast Missouri (4-6-3) off-guard.
The Govs fired six shots in the first half and earned two corner kicks with their aggressive play, but were unable to capitalize on their chances in front of goal.
SEMO opened the scoring in the 30th minute as Lauren Kaempfe dropped a ball over the Governors back line, where forward Esmie Gonzales was able to split two defenders and slot the ball past a diving Govs keeper.
The Redhawks held the lead for six minutes before senior Kirstin Robertson deflected a bouncing ball crossed in by redshirt junior Morgan Jackson into the back of the net tying the match.
After the break, both teams were looked to win the ball high up the pitch and score on a quick counter attack. Despite playing end-to-end, neither team could find an opening to score.
Sophomore keeper Mary Parker Powell made two crucial saves in the second half, including one on a breakaway by Gonzales that she parried over the bar just before the end of regulation.
In overtime, the Govs worked tirelessly to break the deadlock, but ultimately could not get a clean look at goal as the double-overtime match ended in a 1-1 draw.
Notably
The Governors remain undefeated at Morgan Brother’s Soccer Field winning 6 matches and tying one in Clarksville.
The seven game home unbeaten streak is the longest in Govs Soccer history.
Robertson’s goal was her 10th of the season, one away from her career-best 11 set in 2016.
Mary Parker Powell pulled in three saves bringing her season total to 27, a career-high.
The Govs win back to back matches against SIUE and EIU for the first time since 2015.
Defensive Warriors: Powell, sophomore Renee Semaan, freshmen Jade Dauriat and Abby Therrell played the entire 110 minutes Friday fending off SEMO’s quick counter attack and eight corner kicks.
Coaching Quotables with head coach Kelley Guth
“I thought we did really well in spurts, we had to weather some storms, and the girls responded really well in those moments.”
Creating Chances
“The match was back and forth, we did a great job of creating dangerous opportunities, and it is unfortunate we did not execute. But, like I told the girls, we are creating opportunities, and now we need to focus on execution; keep working and finish those opportunities.”
Up Next for APSU Soccer
The Govs play the second match of their homestand 1:00pm, Sunday against UT Martin at Morgan Brothers Soccer Field.
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Gender identity is in no way a lifestyle choice, but the role gender plays in society and on an individual often influences many aspects of lifestyle. The Muse’s Editor in Chief Malcolm Coady and Lifestyles Editor Karen Silver met with Gemma Hickey, Logan St. Croix, Dane Woodland, and Bella Ducey, four trans-identifying persons from St. John’s to discuss their own personal experience of transition. There is no single version of a ‘transgender experience’ and every individual who finds themselves on this journey will ultimately take their own personal route to their destination. The stories of the journey that each of our guests have begun can help others better understand the concept of gender identity, and with any luck also guide others who might be struggling with their own gender identity, and show them that they are not alone, that they deserve to be themselves.
Coming Out
G: I think I’ve been transitioning since the day I was born; you know what I mean – recreating – but officially I came out as trans a few months ago. I had to come out to my family and close friends before coming out to the community. I’ve been an activist for about twenty years so I really wanted to come out publicly, to the community. I felt that it’s very important to be visible and to always give back to people and I felt that coming out would be a way that I could help other people.
L: [I have been transitioning] for about a year and three months. I was always a tomboy or whatever growing up I guess, but I pretty much came out to my family and started taking hormones and doing everything right at the same time, there wasn’t any deliberation over it, it was like ‘this is what I am going to do, this is it.’
D: Similar to Logan I kind of did it all in one shot, like once I told everyone it was like, open the flood gates, here we go. I kind of came to my own realisation about my gender during the summer of 2014.I started taking hormones and came out in August of that year, so I have been taking hormones for a little over two years now and living openly as a trans person for that period of time as well. Kind of like Gemma said, it was happening throughout my life, almost like something that was happening under my nose. I had a very close friend of mine who said to me that if anyone was surprised by my transition at all, then they were not paying attention to me, because it actually came to the point that my peers were saying, ‘People are suspecting that you are trans.’ And stuff like that and it kind of took them telling me what was going on before I actually even had the nerve to consider it myself.
B: I came out five years ago as transgender. My transition was smooth but quick. Everything just happened at once, I realised that this is what I want to do, in one day I realised I was transgender. I cross-dressed a lot and stuff like that in my own privacy and then I was watching this YouTube video by this girl named Kim and she transitioned and I realised you can do that. You can take hormones and all that stuff. Within fifteen minutes I went upstairs and told my mom I was transgender.
D: Like Bella just said about not even knowing that [transitioning] was even a possibility, I can remember going to bed at night and wishing ‘Oh I just wish I could just wake up and just be a guy.’ I genuinely had no clue that that was even a possibility that I could pursue.
G: What I didn’t have was that, you know, one-on-one support that I eventually developed with Dane, and we became friends through that process. He was certainly there for me when I had a lot of questions and didn’t know where to look to get the answers. When I did my [Hope Walk across Newfoundland in order to bring awareness and increase services to victims of Clergy abuse], which was in the summer of 2015, I had a lot of issues come up from walking on the highway for long periods of time, and I just had to pay attention to my body in a way that I hadn’t before. I lost 75 pounds during the training just to do the walk and before that, I was covering my body up, I had weight on, so I just didn’t really pay attention to it. So when I stripped myself down physically and emotionally I really had to pay attention to what was happening inside.
L: I was working, actually, with a trans-fem person at the time, and that was probably my first real interaction with the trans community. She was amazing and I feel like at that point for me, it really didn’t click that it could go the other way. Then actually another person who I had been friends with and had kind of grown apart, had come out as trans. I remember when he had first come out, I asked him, ‘How did you come to this? What had happened in the time that we hadn’t been together?’ He told me that it was kind of a ‘do or die’ point for him. I was going through a pretty shit time personally, just trying to figure out what the fuck I wanted to do with my life, and I remember him saying that over and over in my head, it was like, ‘No, fuck this. I am going to do it.’ I don’t think anyone was terribly surprised. I kind of put it down to those two people, who really showed me the possibilities, and seeing what kind of pressure came off of them when they did it.
D: I remember it was in the first part of 2011, I had a girlfriend and she came back from this training workshop for training in gender diversity and sensitivity, and asked me, ‘Have you ever wondered if you are trans?’ And I was mortified. I didn’t even know what it meant first of all, I was like ‘I can’t believe you are even asking me this.’ But it kind of haunted me from that moment onward. It was kind of like dipping my toes in the water and getting comfortable with a more masculine representation and I was like ‘Wow! This is so great. I want some more.’ I started binding in 2011, but only on special occasions. I found myself telling myself I didn’t like my beasts in a dress shirt and stuff like that. Then I kind of shied away from it, and went back and forth.
I actually had a very private relationship as a trans man with a person who privately referred to me with male pronouns and a nickname over text-messages, just to see if I was comfortable. Then coming up to a New Years Eve party I went in and this person had introduced me as a nickname that could be gender neutral I guess, and I actually went in and reintroduced myself as my birth name, and used female pronouns, as to say, ‘No, I am a girl. You need to know this. Everyone needs to know that I am definitely not trans.’ I just totally freaked out, and then I shied away from it for a period because at that point, I was training for Canada Games, and I was going to compete as a woman and I feared that that would ruin my possibility of doing that.
After I competed in Canada Games, I decided that I wanted to compete in a women’s body building competition, and as I started to change my physique, my shoulders and my arms got bigger and I lost more and more weight, kind of similar to Gemma’s experience, I realized that I was loving the muscle and what I associate with a masculine appearance, but I was hating my breasts, and I was hating my hips and my butt and stuff like that and I could not stop fixating on it, no matter how much progress I was making, and that was around the same time that people were saying, ‘Alright, what’s going on? You’re clearly going through something.’ That possibility was something that I was aware of, and kind of dabbling in for three full years before I really had the courage to, you know, move forward with it. But it is kind of interesting when we talk about coming out, because I think we also have to come out to ourselves and that was something that took me an incredibly long time to wrap my head around before I could move forward with making a transition and more forward into the person I am today.
B: My experience was completely different. As soon as I knew I was transgender, I was like ‘I am doing this.’ So boom boom boom, I got my wig, everything changed in a day. I went from all boy to all girl in twenty-four hours. But I always knew. I was always happier this way; I just didn’t know there was a next step. So I just kind of jumped in.
G: When I would think about girls in high school, and I would fantasize about them, I would pretend I was a boy. I was always wearing men’s clothes, but I was a feminist. I was involved with a lot of women’s groups so I was very firm on the fact that I wanted to be called a woman, because I wanted to represent in solidarity.
I think I felt the strongest reaction from a couple of older women in my life who were former lovers, who are strong feminists and have had moments when I told them, when they would get really emotional. They are quite older than me and had been a part of that movement, some involved in protests where they had been arrested, you know, very strong feminists, very proud women in that way. When I told them, there were just very strong emotional reactions, but shortly after coming out to them, they got through it. It was as if they had been taking it really personally. I had made it clear that I wasn’t erasing anyone’s romantic history. I embrace my past. For me, it’s always who I’ve been. I feel like I’m just becoming more of myself.
L: I have actually had a fantastic time with my family. They were incredibly supportive the entire time. Again, I think they weren’t surprised. I am their only child too so I think they thought, ‘As long as you are happy, because we don’t really have anyone to fall back on.’ But they were great.
I was kind of more worried about my grandparents. They are still very religious. I grew up with my nan making comments about Brokeback Mountain. I had my first girlfriend when I was fourteen, and gay marriage wasn’t legal in Canada until 2005, and I was in that transition period where people were kind of coming around to the idea of it, but nan wasn’t. So I was really scared, but she has actually been amazing from day one.
D: I think I was almost apologetic [to my family] about being a lesbian as if it was the worst possible thing in the world. It was because I was like, ‘Hey, I am gay. Sorry.’ I think that created the avenue for them to think, ‘Okay, this fucking sucks!’ My family is pretty conservative, I was raised Salvation Army, went to church twice a Sunday, I was into it, I was president of a youth group. I think [my family] was kind of just coming around to the fact that I was a lesbian when I pulled the rug out from under them and was like, ‘Surprise! I am actually a guy.’
When I came out to my mom, this is something that haunts me, she is so far beyond this now, but one of the first things she said to me was, ‘Who will love you?’ I though that was very heartbreaking that a parent who loves their child cannot imagine how someone else would love them. She was really afraid for me, if I was to be ostracized and that sort of thing. I spent a long time separating myself from my family for the first little while. Not necessarily that I was angry, but that it hurt so much to be misgendered.
I didn’t have a pronoun during the awkward family dinners. If someone said, ‘Can you pass the ketchup?’ and they weren’t addressing anyone, I quickly came to learn that was me. They wouldn’t say my name. They wouldn’t say anything. If I did have a pronoun, it was, ‘She, sorry.’ Not even, ‘She, sorry he.’ It got to the point where I was like, ‘You’re not actually sorry.’
I went through a breaking point with my mental health as well. I had been diagnosed as bipolar, and my mom took that as perhaps my mental health had caused me to believe that this whole transition thing was going on. Those two are separate things. My family is almost more okay with it now than when I was a lesbian. My nan’s older sister had basically summed it up like, ‘She was a girl who was into girls, now he’s a boy who is into girls, so it’s all good, right?’ I have found a lot of acceptance through my family now, my grandfather gave me a tool box for Christmas and I thought that was kind of like, ‘Welcome to the boy’s club!’ He had me help him install windows and stuff like that. My mom has since done interviews alongside me where she has expressed her own pride, and has talked about her experience of kind of resolving things as well. I think that what it really took was indicating how I was willing to do this despite whatever consequences I might face.
B: I was actually really blessed, there was no judgement really, I remember I came out as gay and there was no problem, everyone kind of knew. Four years after coming out as gay, I came out as transgender. I am a really impulsive kind of person, so I didn’t give it a second thought. So I went upstairs and I told mom, ‘Okay, this is what is happening, this is what we are doing…’ And she was kind of like, ‘Okay. Do you want to finish school first?’ I was like, ‘No, I am jumping in.’ There was a lot of support, and my dad kind of distanced himself a bit. I mean he was supportive, he never got angry or told me I should change, but my mom dealt with it right away, where as my dad didn’t deal with it until a bit later. He was kind of distant and I didn’t really feel like his daughter, until a couple of moths ago, he called me ‘dad’s girl’ and gave me a hug. It was just out of the blue, which was really big for him, so that was really cool, and I felt like, that was who I was.
G: That is so touching.
B: I dropped out of school when I started to transition, and later got my ABE [Adult Basic Education]. But I went to my school, dressed as myself for the first time and I saw this group of guys who I didn’t know. They approached me, and I thought they were going to jump me. I was scared. But they came up to me and told me that if anyone at the school gave me any shit they would have my back, that was really cool.
G: I’ve had a lot of negative experiences coming out as gay, but I’m finding now, coming out as trans, people are like, ‘Congratulations!’ It’s just a sign of the times, you know, things have changed. For the most part I’ve had really good experiences. People just want to understand. I maybe had one negative experience where a friend’s sister had asked me questions like, ‘What are you going to do with your genitals? Are you going to get a penis? Do you use a penis?’ I was like, ‘How do you like to have sex with your husband? And she got it, because that’s how personal it is.
B: Sometimes people just see you as this big genital. Walking, talking genitalia.
L: I came out at the end of July, and at the end of August, I was admitted to The Waterford. I was there for five weeks just after I had started taking hormones and that was a bit of an experience to say the least because I was male presenting, I looked very young, very baby faced, so I got a lot of questions about whether I was a boy or a girl, if I was sure I was supposed to be there because I looked too young, but the patients were actually relatively good.
The nurses on the other hand clearly did not get any training on trans awareness whatsoever. I think getting admitted was an eye opener for me. I remember one time on a weekend, and I was sitting outside the door of the ward to come back in, I rang the doorbell and someone said, ‘Oh that’s just Logan.’ And I could hear them on the other side of the door saying, ‘Oh I thought she came back forever ago.’ And someone said, ‘Oh no, she came back and went out again.’ And I am siting on the other side of the door like, ‘I am going to lose my mind when I go in there.’ And I mean, they had me in a private room because they didn’t know where to put me, which a couple of nurses kind of called me out on, saying, ‘You know this is kind of a special thing, because you wouldn’t want to be over with the women.’ And I definitely appreciated it, but I already shared the bathroom with twenty-five other men on the ward, and there were public bathrooms, but it was irritating at the very least. Then again It was a safety thing for me too, I don’t know what people’s opinions are, I don’t know how comfortable they are with [my] being trans, clearly some of the nurses weren’t.
D: One time I went to a walk-in clinic, I was having a lot of bad migraines, and I just wanted to get in and get out, get a doctor’s note. The doctor was reviewing my chart and she immediately stopped when she saw the testosterone and asked what was going on. I identified myself as a trans person, and then this whole conversation was suddenly about that. ‘Do you have a vagina? Do you still have to get paps?’ This would be like a guy coming in with a cold and they are like, ‘Tell me about your dick.’ How is that relevant?
Another thing that I have recently been thinking about a lot is that I am kind of a fetish for people. People will say to me, ‘You know, I am kind of bi…’ It is almost as if they are letting me know that they would do me the favour of sleeping with me. I find it really insulting when people approach me like that.
B: I remember when I first transitioned, like Dane said, a lot of people looked at me like I was a sex object. That was all people wanted to know. That was it.
About a month ago, I was at the doctor and he asked, ‘So do you have the boobs and all that?’ and I was just like, ‘What does this have to do with my throat?’ He said, ‘I want your other doctor to send over you chart because I want to see how you are developing.’ I was just not going there.
Travel
D: For a long time, I didn’t travel because of the possibility of a physical search. The first time I took a significant trip was when I traveled to Mississauga for my top surgery. On my way back, I was actually chosen for that random search. I was covered in bandages, and I thought it was going to be a huge thing. I told the guy I had just had surgery, he asked where, I indicated my chest and he just avoided that area. I was really impressed at the way they handled that, I really thought they could have easily just passed it off as a likely story, but they were really good about that. My gender marker was not changed on my identification as I was traveling. I was passing it over thinking, ‘Please don’t notice, please don’t notice.’ But no one said anything.
L: I got my gender marker changed on my license because the woman serving me at the DMV thought they made a mistake. She said, ‘It says F on this, I am going to change that. This is like the third person that has happened to lately.’ I am sure trans people all over town love her.
B: I love ancient Egypt. I want to go to Egypt. I am so into it, I love the mystery, the pyramids, the aliens, all of it. I was planning on going to Egypt in a coupe of years and I found out that they will probably kill me over there and I was heartbroken because I want to go so bad. My boyfriend and I were looking at honeymoon destinations and we had to scratch almost 70% of the world out. It was crazy.
Names
B: When I was really young, I called myself a he-she. I named myself Josie. I didn’t really place gender-norms on names, but I remember wanting to be seen in a more feminine way. And Joey is a fairly gender-neutral name, but I had an association with being a boy with that name. I remember asking my dad why I was a boy and he told me I was here to fix stuff, be a man, and get a woman and all this stuff, and I thought, ‘I so do not want to do any of that ever.’
D: I remember as a kid, I asked my mom what she would have named me if I was a boy, and she was going to name me Dane. So when it came time that I was choosing a name, that was the obvious easy choice for me. I always really liked that name because I associated it with, if I was born this way, this would be my name.
There was a really strange experience I had. I was at an after party one time, and this girl asked me my name and I said, ‘Sarah.’ And she said, ‘No it isn’t.’ and I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ She said, ‘Well you don’t say it like it is your name.’ and I was just like, ‘Wow.’ Completely punched me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me.
L: My birth name is Danielle, and when I came out and told people I was going by Logan, they were all like, ‘Why not just go by Daniel?’ Because I have basically been called that my whole life and I don’t like it. When I was a little kid, I remember my gym teacher would nickname everyone and he nicknamed me ‘Dan the man.’ I was super cool with it and it wasn’t until I got to the next grade that I realised that no one else thought that was cool.
D: My middle name was Eva after my great, great aunt and it was a big deal that I was her namesake and she died before I transitioned. So I made my middle name Evan so I am still making that tribute to her and still respecting her in that way because she was important to me.
B: That seems to be a reoccurring theme, people would ask why I didn’t go with Jodie or Josephine or whatever. I just didn’t want anything Jo-related at all. My middle name is Elizabeth, and so is my sister’s, so is my mom’s, and my grandmother’s. I spent a long time looking at names, and I came across Bella. It has nothing to do with Twilight.
G: I like Gemma. I really do. I asked my mom what she would’ve named me as a boy and it was Mark, and I thought, ‘Nah, I like Gemma better.’ I am me. I like my name.
Offerings of Advice
D: I would advise any trans person, or person struggling with gender identity to not give up. There is no one path in determining your gender. No one can tell you what that experience will be for you, and the beauty in that is you can make it what you want to make it. You have the currency to move forward in whichever way you choose. There is no script to follow and I think this is a very freeing feeling.
B: Everyone has different coping skills. All that people want from you is you. That authentic placement of yourself, whether you are a boy or a girl or in between or whatever, all people want from you is that authentic placement in your soul. When that comes out, people want to be around you. They want more of it. All the other stuff is crap. There will be bad days and there will be good days. Love always wins in the end.
L: With the internet and social media, it is a lot easier to connect to people that you might not be able to in person. I spent a lot of time reading different people’s stories and different people’s experiences. A big thing is patience. Don’t compare yourself to the progress of someone else. If you aren’t comfortable, or you don’t have a supportive family, find someone. Just have someone you can go to so you are not doing it by yourself.
B: I just want to say to anyone who needs to hear this, because it is awesome, you never get it done, and you can’t get it wrong. Don’t try to be perfect. Perfection means done, and none of us will ever be done. So relax, and be yourself, and be right now.
D: People don’t often realize that we can relate to each other through the human experience. We all have the same struggles as humans, and I think that if we break down those barriers and make it about being human and not about what your gender is, then we can all support each other and move forward together through that understanding.
B: And if someone is happy, transitioning or not, let them be happy.
G: We have to fight for our lives like we fight for our rights. Sometimes that means standing up on the steps in a rally, and other times that means just getting out of bed. We have to fight every day. No one is going to give us our lives. We have to make them. That means doing what it takes to be happy. |
Analysts think Facebook’s latest PR debacle represents a risk and are divided on the company’s ability to weather security issues
By MARK DECAMBRE
Facebook Inc. shares are on pace to post their largest percentage decline in four years, as the company comes under fire from regulators for allowing a third-party group to access user information without those people’s permission.
The social-networking giant is facing its latest bout of scrutiny over the role third-party groups played in using Facebook’s FB, -6.77% platform during the 2016 presidential election. Regulators in the U.S. and U.K. have criticized the company for allowing Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that helped the Trump campaign, to access data on users without their express permission and hold that data for years despite saying that it had destroyed those records.
The stock plunged 6.8% in midday trading Monday. That would be the biggest one-day percentage decline since it tumbled 6.9% on march 26, 2014. The price decline of $12.53 would be the biggest since Facebook went public in May 2012.
Monday’s rout has wiped away almost $40 billion in market value from Friday’s close of $537.67 billion. The stock closed right at its 200-day moving average, a closely watched trend tracker that currently extends to $172.54, according to FactSet.
Many analysts acknowledged that the latest episode represents a public relations and regulatory risk to Facebook, though they were divided on the company’s ability to weather such challenges.
“It appears that data access by the original app developer was properly permissioned (i.e., this was not a ‘breach’ per se) and we note that Facebook has since upgraded its user privacy functionality and app review process to prevent similar abuse,” wrote Wells Fargo analysts led by Peter Stabler. “Nonetheless, this episode appears likely to create another and potentially more serious public relations ‘black eye’ for the company and could lead to additional regulatory scrutiny.”
Wells Fargo has a buy rating on the stock and a $230 price target.
GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives commented that this new wave of scrutiny could prompt Facebook to make additional tweaks to its news feed and broader platform. “It’s clear with more ‘heat in the kitchen from the Beltway’ that further modest changes to their business model around advertising and news feeds/content could be in store over the next 12 to 18 months,” he wrote.
Facebook announced at the start of the year that it would begin to prioritize content from friends and family members over content from publishers, and the company said on its latest earnings call that changes intended to de-emphasize viral videos had resulted in users spending 50 million fewer hours per day on the platform. Facebook has been able to overcome such issues so far, posting strong growthdespite significant increases in ad prices.
Ives believes that Facebook “can keep regulators at bay” through investments in security, screening, and artificial intelligence but thinks that the next few weeks will require Facebook to “hand hold and assure its users and regulators around tighter content standards and platform security.” Ives rates Facebook stock “highly attractive” and has a $225 price target.
Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser, one of just two analysts with a sell rating on the stock, said he does not expect the latest revelations to pose a near-term risk for Facebook.
“This episode is another indication of systemic problems at Facebook, although the company’s business won’t likely be meaningfully impacted for now because we don’t think advertisers will suddenly change the trajectory of their spending growth on the platform,” Wieser wrote. The company may face “enhanced” risk now, from a regulatory perspective and in terms of what it allows third-parties to measure, according to Wieser. He thinks advertisers may grow frustrated if Facebook begins restricting various types of measurements.
Stifel analyst Scott Devitt said Facebook hasn’t moved swiftly enough to address security concerns about its platform and that the company has been too quick to brush off concerns from critics. He believes the changes Facebook needs to make to restore user trust and tackle these security issues could “ultimately lead to lower engagement and negative monetization implications.” Devitt rates the stock at hold with a $195 target.
Facebook’s debacle helped push the broader tech sector XLK, -1.98% lower. Shares of Twitter Inc. TWTR, -1.69% were down 1.7%, while shares of Snap Inc. have lost 3.4% SNAP, -3.47% and shares of Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -3.03% were off 3%.
The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -1.84% fell 1.8%, posting steeper losses than the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.35% and S&P 500 SPX, -1.42% each off 1.4%.
MARKET WATCH |
SUPPORTERS OF Lebanon’s Shi’ite Amal Movement attacked the headquarters of a Lebanese television channel in Beirut on Tuesday night, protesting against a broadcast they said was insulting to Lebanese Shi’ite cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr.
Around 300 people, some carrying flags of the Amal Movement, tried to storm the headquarters of Lebanese channel al-Jadeed, throwing fireworks, stones and eggs at the building.
Sadr, the founder of the Amal Movement, disappeared after travelling to Libya in 1978 and is presumed dead. Lebanese media said the Tuesday demonstration had been in reaction to a broadcast comedy sketch that referred to the disappearance.
Protesters broke windows, shouted insults at the channel’s owner, and chanted “Here we are Nabih”, referring to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, head of the Amal Movement.
Scores of police and troops arrived to control the protesters, and one policeman was injured.
A security source described the attack as serious but said the army was in control of the situation. An al-Jadeed correspondent said on live television that a fire had erupted in the building, ignited by the fireworks.
President Michel Aoun, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, Defense Minister Yaaqoub al-Sarraf and Information Minister Melhem Riachi had held a series of contacts with security chiefs and political leaders in a bid to calm the situation.
Al-Jadeed deputy chairwoman Karma Khayyat had urged the army to “intervene to put an end to the behavior of (Speaker Nabih) Berri’s supporters outside al-Jadeed’s building,” calling the protesters’ actions “an insult to Imam Moussa al-Sadr.”
Army forces also deployed along the Salim Salam bridge and on the highway near the Sports City, state-run National News Agency reported.
“Those attacking al-Jadeed’s building did not watch the episode that they are protesting against and al-Jadeed does not accept any insult against Sayyed Moussa al-Sadr,” Khayyat stressed.
“We are being threatened with bullets and the cutting off of broadcast, but this will not deter us from saying the truth,” Khayyat added.
In its latest episode on Sunday, the satirical show “Douma Cracy” ( “دمى كراسي”) hosted ex-MP Hassan Yaaqoub, the son of Sheikh Mohammed Yaaqoub who disappeared along with Imam al-Sadr during a 1978 visit to Libya.
Ex-MP Yaaqoub is an opponent of Berri and has criticized his handling of al-Sadr’s case.
The episode featured three puppets impersonating Berri, slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and former U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.
According to An Nahar newspaper, the episode “hinted that Berri knows the location in which al-Sadr vanished.”
The TV show is directed by controversial director Charbel Khalil.
AMAL MP Hani Qobeissi had on Monday accused al-Jadeed of “insulting” al-Sadr whom he described as “the first defender of Lebanon.”
“The language of mockery and disrespect showed that your $70 million contract with some remnants of the Libyan regime to print their books is more important to you than all the causes of the country and its people,” Qobeissi said in a statement.
Iran behind Sadr’s disappearance ?
Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi accused Iran of playing a key role behind the disappearance of Lebanese leader Musa al-Sadr during a trip to Libya in 1978.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ebadi spoke in October last year for the first time about the fate of Imam al-Sadr and suggested Ayatollah Khomeini and his aide played a role in the disappearance of Lebanon’s charismatic Shiite cleric.
“Sadr stayed for several days in Libya waiting for the arrival of Khomeini’s aide Mohammad Beheshti. However, Sadr decided to leave the country when Beheshti’s arrival was delayed,” Ebadi told Farsi-speaking Radio Farda,as quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Sunday.
The Iranian lawyer claimed Sadr was detained at an undisclosed location after Khomeini’s aide telephoned Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
“Beheshti informed Qaddafi that Sadr was in contact with the Iranian Shah, and that they had received evidence proving Sadr was in connection with the Americans.”
“Beheshti asked for the termination of Sadr to remove him from the way of Khomeini. Therefore, Qaddafi ordered that Sadr be killed and buried at an unknown location in the Libyan Desert.”
The charismatic cleric Sadr was born in Iran and migrated to Lebanon to establish the powerful Lebanese militia Amal Movement in 1974 to defend Shiite interests during the civil war.
Libya claimed that Sadr, a relative of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, vanished after leaving Tripoli for Italy, but an Italian investigating magistrate has ruled he never arrived there.
Ebadi said the Sadr family informed her that the Iranian Foreign Ministry had rejected a request to find Sadr .
REUTERS /YL |
VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s capital Vienna once again defended its position as the city offering the best quality of life in the world, while Iraq’s capital Baghdad remains the worst in an annual survey from consulting firm Mercer.
Mercer’s survey of 231 cities helps companies and organizations determine compensation and hardship allowances for international staff. Its criteria include political stability, health care, education, crime, recreation and transport.
Europe has eight of the world’s top 10 most pleasant cities: Germany and Switzerland each have three cities in the top 10, while New Zealand, Canada and Australia each have one.
With a population of 1.8 million, Vienna topped the survey for the ninth year in a row, boasting a vibrant cultural scene, comprehensive healthcare and moderate housing costs.
Vienna is followed by Switzerland’s Zurich and then New Zealand’s Auckland and Germany’s Munich in joint third.
Vancouver, ranked fifth, offers the best quality of living in North America. Singapore at 25 and Montevideo at 77 topped the Asian and Latin American places. The best African entry on the list was South Africa’s Durban in 89th place.
A year before Britain is expected to leave the European Union, its highest ranked city, London, fell one rank to 41 in an annual comparison.
“Cities in the UK continue to rank highly for quality of living, and remain attractive destinations for multinationals and their employees,” said Kate Fitzpatrick, Mercer’s Global Mobility Practice Leader for Britain and Ireland.
Over the past 20 years, living standards increased the most in some eastern European cities such as Sarajevo, now at 159, and Bratislava, at 80, the report said.
“As a result of increased living standards, a competitive labor market and talent availability, many of these cities have started attracting multinational businesses setting up new operations,” said Martine Ferland, President Europe and Pacific.
Baghdad has been at the bottom of the list for a decade now. Waves of sectarian violence have swept through the city since the American-led invasion in 2003.
Yemen’s capital Sanaa, devastated by conflict, ranked two places above Baghdad, and Syria’s Damascus, seven years into a civil war, ranked six places above Iraq’s capital.
Reuters |
The global renown of billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal made his involuntary detention in early November at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel one of the biggest single shocks of Saudi Arabia’s anti-corruption crackdown.
The campaign, led by powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, swept up nearly 400 members of the kingdom’s political and business elite. Authorities estimated financial settlements from the accused would net about $100 billion.
In late January, a BBC broadcast featured a Canadian businessman who said he had spoken with the prince via video link and that the prince appeared to be sitting in jail rather than at the five-star hotel. Saudi Arabia’s authorities had converted the hotel into a luxury prison where hundreds of the kingdom’s wealthiest figures were being held.
Reuters reached out to Saudi authorities for comment; they denied the allegations. Then, they invited us to see Prince Alwaleed at the Ritz for ourselves.
The interview was arranged within hours. At 1:00 a.m. on Jan. 27, a government car picked me up and drove me through the hotel’s massive front gates. It was the first time I had seen them open in nearly three months.
After a brief wait and a tour of the hotel’s empty facilities, I was escorted to an ornate sixth-floor suite where Prince Alwaleed was waiting.
Officials told me not to film outside the suite or catch any of them on camera. No conditions were placed on the interview itself.
The prince promptly took control, ushering me into the office and enthusiastically granting permission to film. The officials exited the room, leaving only the two of us throughout our 25-minute discussion.
Prince Alwaleed said he had been treated well during his time at the Ritz.
He took a defiant stance on the accusations of corruption, saying that he was innocent and that he was certain he would emerge from the process in full control of his assets and his company, Kingdom Holding.
It is impossible to know if Prince Alwaleed was truly free to speak his mind, given that he was still in detention as part of an extrajudicial legal process.
He appeared thin, but he was confident and upbeat, even making jokes as he took me on a tour of the suite. He smiled broadly and insisted that we take a photo together.
I recorded our exchange on my iPhone, propped up by a golden tissue box and a water bottle on his desk.
Hours later, the prince was released.
REUTERS |
Prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini urged Lebanon to strip Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah of his citizenship over his “clear collaboration” and allegiance to Iran.
In an interview last week on Al-Arabiya, he called for revoking Nasrallah’s citizenship for reportedly saying Iran’s doctrine of Guardianship of the Jurist — which grants Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with supreme political power — is above Lebanon’s constitution.
“What the Iranian regime conceals with its [methods] of political dissimulation has been exposed today by Nasrallah through his slips of the tongue. These declarations have harmed the Lebanese state, constitution, and law,” said Husseini, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute which translated Nasrallah’s statements as reported by Iran’s Farda News Agency.
“This is clear collaboration of a Lebanese with a foreign country. Therefore, just like the proper action taken by Bahrain, when it revoked the citizenship of Iran’s collaborators, who were involved in tarnishing the image of Bahrain, I call upon the State of Lebanon to revoke citizenship of Hassan Nasrallah,” Husseini added.
Additionally, Husseini accused Iran of undermining Arab countries and of sowing discord in the Middle East.
“What is happening today in our nation – and I have said this in over a thousand interviews and statements – is that Persian Iran is genuinely endeavoring to shatter our Arab nation to smithereens. Iran wants to divide and infiltrate our nation. Iran is lying in wait for our nation,” he said.
“We started to have a problem in Lebanon when Iran founded Hezbollah, making it and its members guns for hire, fighting here and there in Lebanon, making threats against the UAE, Kuwait, and Yemen, and striking in Saudi Arabia,” Husseini added.
He also accused Iran and “Nasrallah’s followers” of endangering Shiite Islam, which although followed by a majority of Iranians has a significantly smaller following in the Muslim world than Sunni Islam.
Husseini is well known to be strongly against Iran’s influence in Lebanon .
Husseini is the Secretary-General of the Arab Islamic Council.
Last August he praised Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s visits to Saudi Arabia and the UAE stressing that the visit was aimed at improving relations between the Shiites and the Arab countries.
In an interview with Emirates News last August , Husseini predicted “the construction of a new axis between Arab Shiites and the Gulf states to break the relationship between the Arab Shiites and the regime in Iran”.
We welcome the positive steps taken by Saudi Arabia and the UAE by receiving Muqtada al-Sadr, and we consider them to be the basis for a new phase filled with hope and optimism, he said.
In response to a question on the possibility of a real change in Iranian policy, he said:
“The behavior of the Iranian regime does not change, either in the era of conservatives or reformists, because it is based on the violation of human rights and the suppression and brutal repression of dissidents, as in the Ahwaz area,” he added in a possible reference to the Ahwazi Arabs .
Ahwazi Arabs have been mistreated and persecuted in Iran, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979
Ahwazi Arabs are the Arab community in Iran which resides mostly in the resource rich Khuzestan Province in southern Iran, bordering Iraq. This area is known as Ahwaz by the Arab community, and the capital of Khuzestan is Ahvaz. Ahwazi Arabs are the largest Arab community residing in Iran. Hezbollah denies Hezbollah denied Farda News’ report quoting the party’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah as saying that the guardianship of the Islamic jurist (Vilayat-e Faqih) is above the Lebanese constitution and it’s mandatory to implement its orders. Vilayat-e Faqih is a theory in Shiite Islam which holds that Islam gives a custodianship over people. The theory forms the basis of Iran’s constitution. In the speech, Nasrallah declared that his organization is wholly committed to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and that the commitment to Khamenei trumps the organization’s commitment to the Lebanese constitution. This speech, which was not initially publicized in Lebanese or Arab media outlets, encountered scathing critiques from Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon Farda News Agency, which is close to the fundamentalist movement that supports Iran’s Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei, apologized for the report and blamed its correspondent for the “mistake.” Despite denying the report, many Lebanese people shared old videos of Nasrallah in which expressed his hope that Lebanon becomes part of the “Greater Islamic Republic.” Nasrallah has repeatedly said that his party is willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the guardianship of the Islamic jurist and confirmed that Hezbollah is an extension of Iran’s project. He had also acknowledged that the party’s money and weapons come from Iran. |
MPs Sami Gemayel, Ibrahim Kanaan and Nabil Nicola who represent Northern Metn district of Mt Lebanon denounced on Sunday the riots that marred a demo protesting Washington’s decision on Jerusalem near the U.S. embassy in Awkar.
“Awkar is not Gaza and Lebanese security forces are not Israelis”, public properties and citizens’ private properties should not be attack targets,” MP Kanaan, Change and Reform bloc secretary said
“We will not sympathize with your cause from now on. The Lebanese Army is not an occupation army; Awkar is a Lebanese Christian town and not an Israeli, Jewish or Zionist town; and the road to Palestine does not pass through any Lebanese city,” MP Nicola of the Change and Reform bloc tweeted.
“You are terrorizing civilian residents and hurling stones at the army that is protecting you,” the lawmaker charged.
Several protesters and policemen were injured after the demonstration turned violent. The protest was organized by a number of leftist and pan-Arabist Lebanese and Palestinian factions.
Security forces intervened forcefully the end of the protest when some protesters refused to leave the site , chasing the remaining protesters and arresting and beating up a handful of them. Riot police used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons to break up the demo.
Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel meanwhile said that “allowing the turning of the Akwar area into an arena for some rioters to attack the Lebanese Army and this peaceful area and its residents and shops shames this ruling class, which only flexes its muscles against those who defend Lebanon.”
Demonstrators were blocked from reaching the embassy complex by a metal gate . The gate was installed hundreds of meters away from the embassy compound and was partially destroyed by protesters. |
Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager during an arrest raid in the village of Burqin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said on Saturday.
A Reuters witness said about 200 Palestinians were throwing stones at Israeli military vehicles when a gunshot was heard, adding that a wounded person was then carried to a car.
Israel’s military said its forces had been searching in Burqin for suspects involved in the fatal drive-by shooting of an Israeli rabbi from a nearby settlement on Jan. 9.
A military spokeswoman said rioting had broken out while troops were apprehending several suspects connected with that shooting and troops responded with non-fatal “riot dispersal means” against Palestinians throwing rocks and firebombs and then with live gunfire at the main instigators.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the teenager killed on Saturday was 19 years old, while the hospital in Jenin where he was taken said he had been shot in the head.
The Israeli military spokeswoman said he had climbed onto a military vehicle and had opened its door before he was shot.
قوات الاحتلال تواصل اقتحام بلدة برقين وهدم أحد المنازل فيها.
تصوير علي سمودي pic.twitter.com/uTB3DA1nSg — شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) February 3, 2018
Israeli forces in the adjacent city of Jenin last month shot and killed a Palestinian gunman whom they had also suspected of involvement in the rabbi’s shooting.
Tensions in the region have risen since U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December. Since then at least 20 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed.
Trump’s reversal of decades of U.S. policy enraged Palestinians, who want to create an independent state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Israel captured those territories in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally. It says the entire city is its eternal, indivisible capital. It pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014. A bid by Trump’s administration to restart negotiations has shown no real signs of progress.
REUTERS |
Aiming to show tough action against Iran, the White House is preparing a series of measures targeting its affiliates in the country and beyond, even as President Donald Trump quietly steps back from his campaign pledge to rip up the nuclear deal.
New actions to be announced in the coming days will focus on two entities: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group blamed for sowing discord in the Middle East and seeking Israel’s demise. The actions include financial sanctions on anyone who does business with the Revolutionary Guard, as well as millions of dollars in rewards for information leading to the arrest of two operatives of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
The measures were described by two administration officials and a person familiar with the unfolding policy on Iran. The administration officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the actions before they are officially announced. The third person was not authorized to speak about private conversations.
The moves allow Trump to show he is not easing the pressure against the Islamic Republic, even though the nuclear deal he has long derided may live on – at least for the immediate future.
An avowed critic of the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, Trump has called it one of America’s “worst and most one-sided transactions” ever. Yet White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Friday that Trump is looking beyond the deal for ways to pressure Tehran.
“The president isn’t looking at one piece of this,” Sanders said. “He’s looking at all of the bad behavior of Iran – not just the nuclear deal as bad behavior, but the ballistic missile testing, destabilizing of the region, number one state sponsor of terrorism, cyberattacks, illicit nuclear program.”
Since taking office, the Trump administration has spoken about an all-of-the-above approach to countering Iran’s troublesome activities in the region, which extend beyond nuclear development to ballistic missile testing, human rights violations and support for extremist groups. But the administration has had to wait to put that approach into place until it finished a lengthy Iran policy review whose completion has been repeatedly delayed.
The person familiar with Iran policy said H.R. McMaster, the president’s national security adviser, has been the key driver in developing the integrated strategy with the Defense, State and Treasury departments and intelligence agencies.
Trump is set to deliver a policy speech on Iran next week in which he is expected to decline to certify Iran’s compliance in the landmark 2015 agreement that the U.S. and its partners signed with Tehran to rein in its nuclear program.
That would stop short of pulling out of the deal. Lawmakers say Trump isn’t going to immediately announce new nuclear sanctions, which are prohibited by the deal, and instead will refer the matter to Congress.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., tweeted Friday that the White House has told senators the president will “decertify (the) Iran deal but asks Congress NOT to re-impose sanctions.”
Under the new policy, the White House is focusing on the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah – two Iran-backed entities that have long elicited scorn from much of the West.
The State Department next week will announce a total of $12 million in rewards for information leading to the location, arrest or conviction of two leaders of Hezbollah.
The U.S. will offer up to $7 million for information on Talal Hamiyah, who leads Hezbollah’s international terrorism branch and is suspected of carrying out hijackings, attacks and kidnappings of U.S. citizens. Another $5 million is being offered for information on Fuad Shukr, a member of Hezbollah who runs the group’s military forces in southern Lebanon, where the group is based.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, will also feel the squeeze. Legislation signed in August gave Trump an Oct. 31 deadline to either impose sanctions on the IRGC or issue a waiver. He is not expected to sign the waiver, meaning the sanctions will kick in automatically.
The new White House policy will also include a political strategy to curb Iranian aggression, possible covert or cyber operations and diplomatic efforts to change parts of the nuclear deal with Iran.
AP |
By Joe Ruiz A real estate investment startup co-founded by Jared Kushner skirted New York City laws and earned his company more money than expected when they flipped the properties, according to a report by Bloomberg.
In the company’s first-known deal, according to Bloomberg, Cadre sold three rent-regulated buildings for $59 million in April 2017, about an 80% premium over what it paid a little more than two years earlier.
Kushner Cos., Cadre’s operating partner at the property, “told the city the buildings had no rent-regulated tenants when applying for construction permits to update the buildings in 2015 but tax records filed later showed almost 100 such residents,” Bloomberg reported , citing an earlier story by the Associated Press.
Additionally, Kushner, an adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, had not divested his holdings in Cadre by last December, according to Kushner’s latest financial disclosure report.
Tax records filed by Cadre with New York City claimed the properties had no residents in rent-controlled units, according to the Associated Press, but later tax filings showed nearly 100 residents living in rent-controlled units, which would have been worth less to prospective buyers.
CNN |
The evacuation of a group of Syrian rebels and refugees from a border enclave in Lebanon back into Syrian territory started on Monday, Hezbollah-affiliated al-Manar TV reported.
About 300 rebels from a group called Saraya Ahl al-Sham as well as about 3,000 refugees are to leave Lebanon under a deal that followed an assault by the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah on insurgent positions last month.
A convoy of 40 buses had left for the Syrian border, al-Manar said.
Their departure will leave an Islamic State enclave as the last militant stronghold straddling the border near the Lebanese town of Arsal, which is home to tens of thousands of refugees.
The transfer, and another one early this month of Nusra Front fighters and refugees, echoes deals struck within Syria in which Damascus has shuttled rebels and civilians to opposition areas.
On Friday, the Lebanese security official overseeing the arrangements, General Abbas Ibrahim, said a group of civilians would go to Assal al-Ward, an area just across the border from Arsal and held by the Syrian government.
The fighters and their families will go to another part of Syria which he did not identify. A military media unit run by Hezbollah last week said they would go to the rebel-held town of al-Ruhaiba in the Eastern Qalamoun region.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shi’ite group that has played a big battlefield role in Syria’s civil war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad.
Last month it defeated rebels in the insurgent enclaves near the border in Lebanon and forced the hardline Islamist Nusra Front group to leave. About 7,000 refugees departed with them for a rebel-held part of northwest Syria.
The Lebanese army is expected soon to assault the Islamic State pocket in the same area.
That would end a period of several years in which armed groups from inside Syria held positions in the hills around Arsal, the most serious spillover of the s civil war into Lebanon.
More than 1 million Syrian refugees are sheltering in Lebanon, about a quarter of its total population. Hezbollah has stepped up calls for the Lebanese government to engage directly with Damascus over the return of refugees to Syria.
Syria’s opposition has criticized previous evacuations of civilians under ceasefire deals as amounting to the forced transfer of populations, something Damascus denies.
The growing number of evacuation deals for fighters and civilians from besieged rebel areas inside Syria over the past year has helped Assad solidify his hold in several parts of the country.
Lebanon’s General Security, the government agency that negotiated Monday’s transfer, said all the civilians returning were doing so voluntarily.
REUTERS |
Promoting the image of a new Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrives Monday in Washington on a cross-country trip to court government officials, Silicon Valley technology companies, investors and one of his biggest fans: President Donald Trump.
He is a prince on a mission and in a hurry.
The 32-year-old heir to the Saudi throne already has curried favor with the Trump administration, winning over the president and his family, and played a key role in restoring the desert kingdom to favored-ally status after years of tension under President Barack Obama
The prince will meet with Trump at the White House Tuesday and then is expected to travel over the next two weeks to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston and Houston, where he will confer with oil and energy executives.
Trump made his first overseas trip as president to Saudi Arabia last year, where he and the Saudi king, the crown prince’s father, signed agreements to fight terrorism, to counter Riyadh’s regional rival Iran and to plan billions of dollars in business deals, most of which have yet to materialize.
Mohammed is keen to take the next step: attracting American investment, business and expertise in an attempt to diversify and modernize a sclerotic economy that historically has relied on oil and foreign guest workers. He is promoting a development plan he calls Saudi Vision 2030.
The White House meeting comes after Mohammed’s vow to acquire nuclear weapons if Tehran is allowed to build them. Iran’s nuclear program was largely dismantled under a 2015 agreement, but Trump has threatened to scrap the deal it unless Iran and other signatories agree to numerous revisions.
That has raised fears of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, already one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Prince Mohammed is widely viewed as a reformer at home. But his actions are progressive only in the Saudi context of an ultra-conservative society that practices a rigid form of Islam.
He has led changes that will allow women to drive in the kingdom, that will reopen movie theaters and allow some foreign musicians to perform, and that have begun to permit more mixing between men and women at some public events.
He also has reined in the unpopular religious police, who enforce regulations, including attendance at prayers and strict public dress codes.
But numerous limitations remain. The social openings have benefited the growing number of Saudis ages 18 to 35, while maintaining restraints on political freedoms.
Last year, he ordered the detention of hundreds of wealthy businessmen, including members of the royal family. Many were confined for weeks to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh and were released only after they had agreed to turn over cash and shares in their companies.
Saudi authorities portrayed the arrests as a crackdown on rampant corruption and said they recovered more than $106 billion in assets from targets of the investigations. But they did not release details of the financial settlements or the charges they faced, citing privacy concerns.
While many Saudis welcomed the crackdown, others questioned whether the arrests were really a financial shakedown or an attempt to sideline the prince’s potential rivals for the throne.
Even as Mohammed promoted his anti-corruption drive and budget cuts, reports surfaced of his purchases of a $325 million, 440-foot yacht from a Russian vodka tycoon, a $450 million painting by Leonardo da Vinci and a $300 million chateau near Paris that has been called the world’s most expensive home.
More serious was his decision, as Saudi defense minister, to intervene in the civil war in neighboring Yemen in a military campaign that humanitarian groups say has led to widespread atrocities.
Instead of a quick victory, Saudi Arabia is mired in a war against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels. Saudi airstrikes — some backed by U.S. intelligence and using U.S.-supplied munitions — have killed thousands of people, according to human rights groups, and have struck schools, medical facilities and other civilian targets.
Mohammed will find a warm welcome at the White House, however. He began working with Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, soon after the 2016 election, and the two orchestrated Trump’s visit to the kingdom last year. Kushner’s recent loss of a top-secret security clearance may limit his role, however.
While in the U.S., Mohammed will focus heavily on his country’s economic challenge. The plummeting price of oil, which fueled the Saudi economy for decades, has cut deeply into the national budget.
The prince’s Saudi Vision 2030 plan includes provisions to sell shares in the state oil monopoly, Saudi Aramco, and remake the kingdom into a hub of international business, finance and technology.
ST Louis Today |
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis has warned the Syrian regime against the use of chemical weapons, telling reporters Friday “you have all seen how we reacted to that, so they’d be ill advised to go back to violating the chemical convention.”
Mattis was referring to the April 2017 military strike when the US launched Tomahawk missiles against Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians.
Asked if the Syrian regime was using chlorine weapons Mattis said he believed they had done so “repeatedly” but said that the US is “even more concerned about the possibility of Sarin use, the likelihood of Sarin use, and we’re looking for the evidence.”
Mattis said he does not believe that Syria has kept to the 2013 agreement brokered by the US and Russia that required the Assad regime to relinquish their chemical weapons.
“We think that they did not carry out what they said they would do back when in the previous administration when they were caught using it. Obviously, they didn’t, because they used it again during our administration, and that gives us a lot of reason to suspect them, and now we have other reports from the battlefield, from people who claim it’s been used, we do not have evidence of it, but we are not refuting them, we are looking for evidence of it, since clearly we are dealing with the Assad regime that has used denial and deceit to hide their outlaw actions.”
close dialog Mattis acknowledged that the US has not seen direct evidence of the use of Sarin gas but pointed to open source reports. “I don’t have the evidence. What I’m saying is that groups on the ground, NGOs, fighters on the ground have said that Sarin has been used,” he said. “We are looking for evidence. I don’t have evidence credible or uncredible.” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Thursday said the US is “extremely concerned about yet another report of the use of chlorine gas by the Syrian regime to terrorize citizens” in east Ghouta. Nauert said this is the third reported incident in east Ghouta in the last 30 days. “We call on the international community” to hold the responsible parties accountable, Nauert said. Recent alleged attacks have suggested that Syria continues to produce weapons, US officials told reporters Thursday. The Assad regime may also be producing new kinds of weapons, the officials said, with the goal either to improve military capability or avoid accountability from the international community, the officials added. Following the April strike against the regime airbase, Mattis told reporters the regime “the Syrian regime should think long and hard before it again acts so recklessly in violation of international law against the use of chemical weapons,” adding, “if they use chemical weapons, they are going to pay a very, very stiff price”
CNN |
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies came under intense selling pressure on Friday, as concerns over a tighter global regulatory atmosphere chopped billions from the crypto market.
Bitcoin BTCUSD, -2.22% was most recently changing hands below the $9,000 level at $8,742, down nearly 13%, according to research and news site CoinDesk.com. Bitcoin’s spot price briefly fell below $8,000 to a low of about $7,700.
Elsewhere in the virtual-currency universe, Ether coins on the Ethereum blockchain sank 15% to $880, Ripple coins tumbled 13% to 85 cents, and Litecoin slid 11% to $128, according to CoinDesk.
In just 24 hours, the global cryptocurrency coughed up around $103 billion in about 24 hours. The total market value stood at around $413 billion early Friday, according to CoinMarketCap.
Analysts were downbeat about bitcoin’s ability to bounce back in the near term, after a string of headlines battered sentiment this week.
“The wheels are coming off the bitcoin bandwagon,” said Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital. “The regulatory crunch appears closer than ever, and sooner or later this market could be headed back down to earth.”
“Selling pressure at the moment is intense as there has been nothing but bad news for bitcoin bulls of late,” he said in a note to clients.
A fresh wave of selling kicked off late Thursday after India’s finance minister, Arun Jaitley, reportedly said the country’s government will come down hard on cryptocurrencies, as it doesn’t see them as a form of legal tender.
Jaitley said Indian officials will “take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system.”
Last week, South Korea announced restrictions on anonymous trading of bitcoin accounts.
Facebook Inc.’s FB, -1.46% ban on ads for cryptocurrencies earlier in the week has cast its own shadow over the asset class. Meanwhile, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission reportedly issued subpoenas last month to the largest digital currency exchange, Bitfinex, and its sister company Tether. Tether Limited mints coins that are pegged one-to-one to U.S. dollars.
“The key concern facing the bulls is the CFTC investigation into Tether and the Bitfinex exchange. Claims of full dollar convertibility are under scrutiny. Given there are about 2 billion tether coins in existence, there should be a $2 billion account somewhere but Tether has yet to prove it or have accounts audited,” Wilson said.
February bitcoin futures on the Cboe Global Markets Inc. XBTG8, -6.17% ended down $580, 6.4%, to 8,500, while comparable futures on the CME Group Inc. BTCG8, -5.50% settled off nearly 5.5%, or $505, at $8,585.
Market Watch |
UNIFIL peacekeepers joined Lebanese officials and women activists last week in celebrating women’s contribution to peace and stability in south Lebanon.
Speaking at an event organized to mark International Women’s Day in the south Lebanese town of Tyre on 8 March, the speakers also highlighted the important role of women in the United Nations peacekeeping.
UNIFIL’s Sector West Commander Brigadier General Rodolfo Sganga said women peacekeepers are essential in reaching out to the women in the communities and bringing in their concerns and contributions towards furthering peace.
“Every peacekeeper can fully recognize that they are important pillars of the Lebanese society, of our operations and of peace and security,” said Brigadier General Sganga. “Women of Lebanon and especially of south Lebanon are role models of strength, persistence and courage.”
He noted that even though the number of women currently serving in armed forces across the world is still much less than the number of men, the UN peacekeeping is a field in which “we lead the way in the pursuit for gender parity.”
Highlighting UNIFIL’s Female Assessment/Analysis and Support Team (FAST) initiative, launched in August 2016, Brigadier General Sganga said it ensures that “women’s voices are heard, that women’s concerns are met, that we – male and female – peacekeepers are there for all genders in the local communities that we are here to serve.”
As of 28 February 2018, UNIFIL has 494 women peacekeepers, accounting for 4.7 per cent of about 10,500 troops. Among UNIFIL’s 41 troop contributing countries, Ghana has the highest number of women in uniform (131), followed by France (61), Indonesia (49), Greece (29), Spain (27), Italy (25), Malaysia and Nepal (24 each).
UNIFIL FAST team members regularly organize all-female patrols within the UNIFIL area of operation in south Lebanon.
Speaking on the 8 March event, which was also attended by Lebanese dignitaries including the President of the Tyre Union of Municipalities, Hassan Dbouk, leading Lebanese woman activist and social worker Randa Berri paid tribute to UNIFIL’s women peacekeepers.
“The women in uniform present a good example in the southern environment and work on encouraging the Lebanese women to join the security forces so as to take the responsibility in realizing national and social stability,” said Berri. “For the women operating in UNIFIL – be they in military or civil capacity – are an apparent and bright examples of women’s ability to share with men in taking responsibility in the service of achieving world peace.”
Berri highlighted a number of activities carried out by UNIFIL’s women peacekeepers, including in the fields of healthcare, education, and social, economic and cultural development.
On the occasion, UNIFIL’s Malaysian peacekeepers presented cultural performances, Korean peacekeepers presented a taekwondo show, Irish peacekeepers gave a music performance, and Ghanaian peacekeepers presented music and songs. In addition, UNIFIL’s all-female FAST members displayed their activities on stage with statements on what being a woman peacekeeper means, the distinct impact they make to UN peacekeeping. Brigadier General Sganga honoured the FAST members with mementos.
UNIFIL |
The White House on Tuesday reiterated its position that the United States does not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“We don’t recognize Russia’s attempts to annex Crimea at all,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters as Trump flew to West Virginia. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to hold a summit on July 16 in Helsinki.
REUTERS |
U.S. President Donald Trump supports the goal of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, even if it does not involve the two-state solution, a senior White House official said on Tuesday.
Speaking a day before Trump holds a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official said peace was the ultimate goal.
“Whether that comes in the form of a two–state solution if that’s what the parties want, or something else,” the official said, adding that Trump would not try to “dictate” a solution.
Failure by a U.S. president to explicitly back a two-state solution would upend decades of U.S. policy embraced by Republican and Democratic administrations. It has long been the bedrock U.S. position for resolving the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has been at the core of international peace efforts.
Any sign of a softening of U.S. support for eventual Palestinian statehood could also anger the Muslim world, including Sunni Arab allies, which the Trump administration needs in the fight against Islamic State and to back efforts against Shi’ite Iran.
Trump considers Middle East peace a “high priority,” the White House official said. The president has given his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the job of negotiating a peace deal.
“We would want to work on it very quickly,” the official said.
Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, will not be involved in the president’s discussions with Netanyahu on Wednesday, the official said.
Friedman advocates settlement building and has questioned the two-state solution.
The White House said earlier this month that Israel’s building of new settlements or expansion of existing ones in occupied territories may not be helpful in achieving peace.
The statement was a shift in tone for Trump, who signaled during the campaign that he could be more accommodating toward settlement projects than his predecessor, Barack Obama.
REUTER |
BEIRUT – Officials from Lebanon’s Shi’ite parties Amal and Hezbollah visited a mainly Christian district of Beirut on Friday to help defuse tensions ignited this week by a row involving the country’s president and the parliamentary speaker.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, the son-in-law of President Michel Aoun, enraged supporters of Shi’ite Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, when he was heard in a leaked video calling Berri “a thug”. Bassil and Aoun are Maronite Christians.
Demanding an apology, supporters of Berri and his Amal movement staged protests in various parts of the country.
The standoff threatened to inflame sectarian violence and paralyze the government in the run-up to legislative elections in May, the first since 2009 after parliament extended its own term three times.
But Aoun spoke by telephone with Berri on Thursday, and the standoff eased further on Friday with a meeting between the Shi’ite officials and members of Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) in the mainly Christian district of Hadath, on the southern outskirts of Beirut.
“The situation has returned to normal after lessons were learned from recent events,” Aoun said on his official Twitter account on Friday.
Commenting on the talks in Hadath, FPM lawmaker Alain Aoun, a nephew of the president, said: “Our meeting today is a message countering all that happened in recent days. It is also a message to (Speaker Berri) that his dignity and ours are one.”
CALL FOR UNITY
At a joint news conference, lawmakers from Amal, Hezbollah, and the FPM called for national unity and religious tolerance.
Amal distanced itself from the protests of the past few days, which saw some supporters set tyres ablaze, block roads and fire guns into the air, leading to the deployment of troops in Hadath on Wednesday to prevent violence.
“Everybody knows the Amal movement has nothing at all to do with what has happened,” Ali Bazzi, an Amal lawmaker, said.
“And we have the courage the morality… to apologize publicly for any offence that affected the Lebanese on the ground,” he added.
The FPM says Bassil has already expressed regret over his remarks, and that it regards the issue as over. Berri has previously said Bassil should apologize “to the Lebanese people” for his remarks.
Berri has accused Aoun of exceeding his powers at the expense of other sects.
The latest standoff has again exposed the fragility of Lebanon’s faction-based politics.
Lebanon’s system of government aims to maintain a balance between the country’s many religious sects, who fought a 1975-1990 civil war. Berri and Aoun, both now in their 80s, were civil war enemies.
Iran-backed Hezbollah’s links to Berri and Amal run much deeper than its political alliance with the FPM.
(Reuters) |
An Oklahoma man charged with a hate crime in the fatal shooting of his Lebanese neighbor will not testify during his murder trial.
After prosecutors rested their case Thursday, 63-year-old Stanley Majors told the judge he’s decided not to take the witness stand.
Majors is charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime in the 2016 death of 37-year-old Khalid Jabara in Tulsa.
He has pleaded not guilty. Defense attorneys say he had untreated schizophrenia and experienced a “psychotic episode” during the homicide, although he’s been found competent for trial. |
A weekend of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia caused by white nationalists is leading to pressure on President Donald Trump to fire the man in his White House who is most closely linked to the movement.
Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center called chief strategist Steve Bannon “the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill.”
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) last year blasted Trump’s decision to bring Bannon into the White House:
“Mr. Bannon is adored by white supremacists, white nationalists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. It’s not hard to see why. If the President-elect is serious about rejecting bigotry, hatred, and violence from his supporters, he must rescind Stephen Bannon’s appointment. This man shouldn’t be allowed to visit the White House ― let alone run it.”
Likewise, a spokesman for then-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said Bannon’s presence in the administration “signals that white supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House.”
Now, critics want Trump to axe him, with #FireBannon trending on Twitter for much of Sunday evening:
Bannon wanted #Charlottesville. He's a supremacist in the WH and he must go. Use #FireBannon to make your voice heard. Tweet & RT. Be loud. pic.twitter.com/ka56JWDHL5 — Beau Willimon (@BeauWillimon) August 13, 2017
The bigoted policies of President Bannon are tearing our country apart. It is time to #FireBannon. https://t.co/sGFFfQwtOw — Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) August 13, 2017
It's criminal that America's WH has been taken over by White Supremacists #FireBannon #FireMiller #ImpeachTrump They are Destroying America https://t.co/YcgY7wXO7o — os (@abctweet100) August 14, 2017
Trump's gotta go! But first let's get rid of his buddy who is somewhere cackling like a Timothy Dalton era James Bond villain. #FireBannon pic.twitter.com/ccGoVeEKR6 — W. Kamau Bell (@wkamaubell) August 13, 2017
HUFFINGTON POST |
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah urged Sunday the political leaders to recognize the survival of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.
Addressing a rally on Sunday, he advised Lebanon’s government to normalize ties with its war-torn neighbor.
Lebanon’s political parties are split over whether to restore ties with the Syrian leader.
The Iranian backed Hezbollah militant group Hezbollah has invested heavily in Assad’s survival. More than a thousand of its fighters have died fighting alongside government forces in Syria.
Syria occupied Lebanon from 1976 until April 2005 when it withdrew its forces under domestic and International pressure following the assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri and the eruption of the Cedar Revolution
Nasrallah also said the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had no way to harm the Iran-backed group, dismissing U.S. sanctions and threats.
Trump last month called Hezbollah “a menace” to the Lebanese people and to the entire region.
U.S. lawmakers last month introduced legislation seeking to increase sanctions on Hezbollah by further restricting its ability to raise money and recruit by increasing pressure on banks that do business with it. |
Unfortunately for traders the crypto meltdown accelerated over the weekend with further heavy declines being seen across the board.
This has left the entire cryptocurrency market with a value of US$283.5 billion, according to Coin Market Cap. At the start of the year the market was worth over US$800 billion. Nearly a 65 % drop i market value
Here’s the state of play on Monday morning:
The bitcoin (BTC) price has fallen almost 5% over the last 24 hours to US$7,495.40 per coin, reducing its market capitalisation to a lowly US$126.9 billion. According to Paul Day, a technical analyst and head of futures and options at Market Securities Dubai Ltd, the world’s largest cryptocurrency could have much further to fall. After studying its past movements, the analyst told Bloomberg that he thinks bitcoin could fall to US$2,800 in the near future.
The Ethereum (ETH) price has been the worst performer amongst the majors during the last 24 hours with a 13% decline to US$485.93. This has brought ETH’s market capitalisation down to US$47.75 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price hasn’t fared that much better and has lost 9% of its value since this time yesterday. The XRP price is now 57.9 U.S. cents, giving the popular altcoin a market capitalisation of $22.65 billion.
Bitcoin spin-off, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), has seen its price fall 8% over the last 24 hours to US$865.33 per token. BCH has been left with a market capitalisation of US$14.7 billion.
The Litecoin (LTC) price has continued its poor run and is down a further 7.5% since this time yesterday to US$141.52 per coin. Litecoin now has a market capitalisation of US$7.9 billion.
Outside the top five there were heavy declines for the likes of Cardano (ADA), NEO(NEO), and Stellar Lumens (XLM). These three crypto currencies are each down no less than 10% over the last 24 hours.
One bright spot, however, was the IOTA (MIOTA) price. It has climbed 7% during the last 24 hours to US$1.18. This increased its market capitalisation to US$3.3 billion. There doesn’t appear to be a catalyst for this move higher, though. |
A woman was killed by an Uber self-driving sport utility vehicle in Arizona, police said on Monday, and the ride hailing company said it had suspended its autonomous vehicle program across the United States and Canada.
The accident in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe marked the first fatality from a self-driving vehicle, which are being tested around the globe, and could derail efforts to fast-track the introduction of the new technology.
The vehicle was in autonomous mode with an operator behind the wheel at the time of the accident, which occurred overnight Sunday to Monday, Tempe police said.
“The vehicle was traveling northbound … when a female walking outside of the crosswalk crossed the road from west to east when she was struck by the Uber vehicle,” police said in a statement.ADVERTISING
The woman later died from her injuries in a hospital, police said. Her name has not been released because her next of kin had not yet been notified, police said.
Tempe police could not immediately be reached for further comment.
The vehicle involved in the accident was a Volvo, a person familiar with the matter said. Local television footage of the scene showed a crumpled bike and a Volvo XC90 SUV with a smashed-in front.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Transportation Safety Board said they were sending investigative teams to probe the crash. NHTSA also said it was in contact with Volvo.
A spokesman for Uber Technologies Inc said the company was suspending its North American tests. In a tweet, Uber expressed its condolences and said the company was fully cooperating with authorities.
(REUTERS) |
“This was a routine transaction to purchase a routine ammunition,” Victor said at a news conference Friday. “After that transaction, Doug had absolutely no further contact with Mr. Paddock.”
Haig also denied having in any way contributed to the deadliest mass shootingin modern U.S. history.
“I had no contribution to what Paddock did. I had no way to see into his mind. The product that I sold him had absolutely nothing to do with what he did. I’m a vendor, a merchant whose name was released,” he told reporters.
Victor compared his client’s contribution to the tragedy to that of “somebody who may have cooked a hamburger for Mr. Paddock that day before he went and did what he did.”
He added that “none of his ammunition was used” in the shooting.
Haig doesn’t believe Paddock used the tracer bullets — which contain a pyrotechnic charge that illuminates the path of fired bullets — he sold him to gun down 58 people and injure hundreds more.
“You would have seen red streaks coming from the window,” Haig said, referring to Paddock’s perch from a Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino hotel room.
Haig, an aerospace engineer who sells ammunition as a hobby, says he has stopped selling it for the moment.
“I don’t feel personal responsibility, but at the same time, I can’t look into everybody’s mind. I can’t look into their heart.”
He said he felt sick when he first heard from federal agents several days after the attack.
He said he was “horrified that this man would do something like that,” and called the news “probably one of the most horrible things I’ve ever been told or heard of.”
Haig claims Paddock told him he wanted the ammunition to “put on a light show” with friends in the desert.
“He said that he was going to go out and shoot it at night with friends,” Haig said.
Haig said nothing out of the ordinary occurred during the brief transaction.
“He told me what he wanted, I gathered it up, put it in a box. Told him what he owed me. He paid me, put it in his car and drove away,” Haig said. “At no time did I see anything suspicious or odd or any kind of a tell. Anything that would set off an alarm.”
Federal agents identified Haig through a box with his name on it found in the gunman’s hotel room.
“I think they were hoping to find somebody who was in collusion with him. And my name was on a box in his room and they were hoping I was tied into it…And nothing could be further from the truth,” Haig said.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
North Korea violated United Nations sanctions to earn nearly $200 million in 2017 from banned commodity exports, according to a confidential report by independent U.N. monitors, which also accused Pyongyang of supplying weapons to Syria and Myanmar.
The report to a U.N. Security Council sanctions committee, seen by Reuters on Friday, said North Korea had shipped coal to ports, including in Russia, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, mainly using false paperwork that showed countries such as Russia and China as the coal origin, instead of North Korea.
The 15-member council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, banning exports including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capping imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.
“The DPRK (North Korea) is already flouting the most recent resolutions by exploiting global oil supply chains, complicit foreign nationals, offshore company registries and the international banking system,” the U.N. monitors wrote in the 213-page report.
The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. report. Russia and China have repeatedly said they are implementing U.N. sanctions on North Korea.
SYRIA, MYANMAR
The monitors said they had investigated ongoing ballistic missile cooperation between Syria and Myanmar, including more than 40 previously unreported North Korea shipments between 2012 and 2017 to Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Centre, which oversees the country’s chemical weapons program.
The investigation has shown “further evidence of arms embargo and other violations, including through the transfer of items with utility in ballistic missile and chemical weapons programs,” the U.N. monitors wrote.
They also inspected cargo from two North Korea shipments intercepted by unidentified countries en route to Syria. Both contained acid-resistant tiles that could cover an area equal to a large scale industrial project, the monitors reported.
One country, which was not identified, told the monitors the seized shipments can “be used to build bricks for the interior wall of a chemical factory.”
Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013. However, diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability.
The Syrian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. report.
The U.N. monitors also said one country, which they did not identify, reported it had evidence that Myanmar received ballistic missile systems from North Korea, along with conventional weapons, including multiple rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles.
Myanmar U.N. Ambassador Hau Do Suan said the Myanmar government “has no ongoing arms relationship, whatsoever, with North Korea” and is abiding by the U.N. Security Council resolutions.
BANNED EXPORTS, IMPORTS
Under a 2016 resolution, the U.N. Security Council capped coal exports and required countries to report any imports of North Korean coal to the council sanctions committee. It then banned all exports of coal by North Korea on Aug. 5.
The U.N. monitors investigated 16 coal shipments between January and Aug. 5 to ports in Russia, China, Malaysia and Vietnam. They said Malaysia reported one shipment to the council committee and the remaining 15 shipments violated sanctions.
After the coal ban was imposed on Aug. 5, the U.N. monitors investigated 23 coal shipments to ports in Russia, China, South Korea and Vietnam. The U.N. monitors said all those shipments “would constitute a violation of the resolution, if confirmed.”
“The DPRK combined deceptive navigation patterns, signals manipulation, transshipments as well as fraudulent documentation to obscure the origin of the coal,” the monitors said.
The U.N. monitors “also investigated cases of ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products in violation (of U.N. sanctions) … and found that the network behind these vessels is primarily based in Taiwan province of China.”
The monitors said one country, which they did not name, told them North Korea had carried out such transfers off its ports of Wonsan and Nampo and in international waters between the Yellow Sea and East China Sea between October and January.
The report said several multinational oil companies, which were not named, were also being investigated for roles in the supply chain of petroleum products transferred to North Korea.
REUTERS EXCLUSIVE REPORT |
Iran’s semi-official ILNA news agency is reporting that the country has called “inhumane” a decision by the Trump administration to expand a list of medical equipment requiring federal authorization for sale to Iran.
The Friday report cites the director of Iran’s Food and Drug Administration, Rasoul Dinarvand, as saying that extending the list is “inhumane”.
Dinarvand said the equipment has diagnostic and treatment applications.
The U.S. Treasury Department recently modified on Iran, expanding a list of medical equipment that needs clearance to be sold to Iranian customers.
The Obama administration eased sanctions on Iran as part of a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement, including a ban on the sale of many medical devices, affecting products used for nuclear medicine purposes with possible uses in an atomic weapons program.
© 2017 The Associated Press |
Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was the first elected Republican to hit hard on the turmoil in President Trump’s White House, and the continuing questions about Russian influence.
“General Flynn’s resignation is a troubling indication of the dysfunction of the current national security apparatus,” said Mr. McCain, who has emerged as one of the few Republican antagonists that Mr. Trump has not silenced.
“General Flynn’s resignation also raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intentions toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia, including statements by the President suggesting moral equivalence between the United States and Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, threats to our NATO allies, and attempted interference in American elections,” he continued.
Republicans largely silent
As scandal swirled around President Trump’s new White House, Republicans in Congress beyond Mr. McCain were almost silent on the resignation of Mr. Flynn and its implications.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin chose to focus on Mr. Flynn’s decision to mislead Vice President Mike Pence on the contents of his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak.
“You cannot have a national security adviser misleading the vice president and others,” he told reporters Tuesday.
But Mr. Ryan deflected when asked about calls for congressional inquiries into the episode. “I’m not going to prejudge circumstances surrounding this,” he said. “I think the administration will explain the circumstances that led to this.”
He again praised Mr. Trump, without identifying Mr. Flynn by name. “As soon as this person lost the president’s trust, the president asked for his resignation,” Mr. Ryan said, “and that was the right thing to do.”
In fact, the Justice Department informed the White House a month ago that Mr. Flynn had not been truthful about his conversations with the ambassador.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes of California, a Trump loyalist, released one of the few statements from the Republican side of the aisle, and it offered no criticism:
“Michael Flynn served in the U.S. military for more than three decades. Washington, D.C., can be a rough town for honorable people, and Flynn — who has always been a soldier, not a politician — deserves America’s gratitude and respect for dedicating so much of his life to strengthening our national security. I thank him for his many years of distinguished service.”
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was no more forthcoming. “Mike Flynn served his country with distinction,” he said in a statement. “The President needs a National Security Adviser whom he can trust and I defer to him to decide who best fills that role.”
One exception, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, who threw his not very heavy weight behind a bipartisan commission.
Amid turmoil, military leaders grow worried
General Tony Thomas, head of the military’s Special Operations Command, told a military conference on Tuesday that the upheavals in Washington are rippling through the American military.
“Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil,” he said. “I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war.”
General Thomas insisted Special Operations Forces are “staying focused” despite all the controversy in Washington.
Asked about his comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, “As a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible.”
Conway: Flynn listened to “leader calls” as recently as Monday
Although the White House was warned a month ago that Mr. Flynn had been untruthful about the nature of his contacts with Moscow, he was allowed into security briefings as recently as Monday, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said on the “Today” show on Tuesday.
The Justice Department had warned the White House weeks ago that Mr. Flynn’s dissembling put him at risk of blackmail from Russian intelligence, but he was kept by the president’s side.
“That’s one characterization,” Ms. Conway said when confronted with those circumstances.
The Kremlin washes its hands of Flynn
Mr. Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States are not in question, nor is his trip to Moscow to fete the Russian propaganda network RT — sitting next to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — but Moscow said Tuesday that his resignation was a domestic matter unconnected to the Kremlin. |
As talks to release the thousands of detainees in Syria fail again and again, FRANCE 24 met with Families for Freedom, a group of Syrian women who aim to raise awareness of their plight.
He’d told her the screaming and the torture goes on all night. Their tiny cell, strategically placed next to the torture chamber so they can hear what’s going on inside, is crammed with 150 naked people. In the morning — after breakfast of a small piece of bread and five olives — the detainees’ first job is to remove the bodies of those killed during the night. There are usually about 35 victims. Sometimes there are as many as 50. They put the bodies into sacks and load them onto trucks. Then they wash the torture chamber’s floor of the victims’ blood. This is the morning ritual at the military intelligence detention centre, branch 227, in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
As she describes the detention centre where she believes her husband, Nasser, a civil activist, is being held, Farizah Jahjah, 50, takes a huge breath and her eyes fill with tears. She’s been perfectly composed until now. Neatly dressed in a black knee-length dress and red scarf with glasses perched on her dark hair, she talks passionately yet calmly about the issue of detainees in Syria.
It’s been nearly four years since she’s had news from her husband. She has no idea if he’s dead or alive. She’s heard rumours but nothing concrete, nothing from an official source. She’s only heard an account of his time in prison from a man who was with him when he was first detained and subsequently released.
Farizah’s husband is one of thousands of Syrians being held in secret detention centres and prisons throughout the country. A year ago, she and four other Syrian women founded Families for Freedom, an NGO that aims to give a voice to the families of detainees and highlight their plight.
Ultimately, they’re asking for the immediate release of all those unlawfully detained. But in the meantime, they’re urging the Syrian government to release a list of names of all those in custody — along with their location and status — and allow international aid groups access to detention facilities.
Detained for delivering milk
It’s impossible to give a precise figure of the number of detainees in Syria because no international observers have been given access to detention centres. Estimates of those behind bars vary wildly — from 200,000 to as many as 300,000. As of January 2018, the Syrian Network for Human Rights says at least 215,000 people are believed to be in the custody of authorities, including women and children.
Some have been detained for peaceful opposition, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for the “crime” of delivering milk.
Hala al Ghawi, 39, a doctor and another of the group’s founders, says that every family in her neighbourhood is missing someone. Farizah rattles off lists of friends who are missing family members — cousins, grandparents, siblings and children. Sometimes, whole families have been disappeared or detained.
Forced disappearance and arbitrary detention have long been a weapon of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government but there has been a sharp escalation since the beginning of the civil war in 2011. Although detention and torture are practised by all sides in the conflict, Assad’s government is believed to be behind the vast majority of arrests.
Some of the detainees are civil activists, like Farizah’s husband; others are doctors, like Hala’s husband, who was arrested in 2011.
“He wasn’t involved in any political activity,” she says. “He is a doctor. He made it his duty to help people.”
Dr. al Ghawi was arrested after a man rang his clinic to make an appointment for his wife, saying she was suffering from stomach problems. When the man arrived and found Dr. al Ghawi in his practice, he said he’d return with his wife – but instead, security forces swooped in and took the doctor away. He was lucky enough to be released after 70 days.
He was freed, Hala believes, so that he would warn people outside of the horrible conditions inside prison. Seven years later, he suffers from depression, PTSD and still has flashbacks from his time inside. “He dreams that they are coming to capture him,” she says.
Then in 2013 her father-in-law, 70, was arrested at the market when he was buying vegetables. And 20 days later they took her brother, now 33, from his metal workshop in the west-central city of Hama.
Despite begging for information and going to every prison she could, she has no news of either of them.
“It’s chaos in some places,” said Mohammed Ghannam, 38, who spent 14 months in prison in Homs and now lives in Paris. “There are people who are thrown in prison and they completely forget about them. There are no papers for their arrest.”
The prisons are overflowing and some people are being held in underground shopping malls that have been turned into secret detention centres. Ghannam was briefly detained and interrogated in a cultural centre in the northwestern city of Idlib.
Assad has refused to bow to demands for international observers to visit the prisons. On the rare occasion that he does, as he did in Homs in 2011, the Assad regime manages to find a way to hoodwink the international community.
“They always find a way to trick the system”, said Ghannam. “I was there. They moved us from the [detention] centre. Those observers saw an empty bombed out building.”
‘The walls have ears’
Before the 2011 popular uprising, many Syrians were too afraid to speak out for fear of retribution. “My parents told me the walls have ears,” said Hala, who grew up in the city of Hama, scene of the 1982 massacre, where an estimated 20,000 people were killed on the orders of Hafez al-Assad — the current president’s father.
But the revolution — and the disappearance of their loved ones — gave them courage. Although both Hala and Farizah now live outside of Syria, they still have family at home. Hala, who lives in Turkey, says she is very careful and cautious about what she says. She wants to stress that Families for Freedom is asking for the release of detainees as a humanitarian gesture. They don’t want Assad to use the detainees as a negotiating tool.
Before her husband’s arrest in 2014, Farizah herself had been threatened with detention. She fled Syria with their two children, eventually making a new home in France. But her husband had refused to leave on the principle “that if all of us are seeking freedom and a better future — some of us have to stay”. Farizah was initially too afraid to speak out about her husband’s arrest. After years of silence she felt it was her only option. She won’t even talk about her family in Syria for fear of reprisals against them.
Hala shrugs when she explains why her parents refuse to leave the country. They’re waiting for her brother, she says, “that maybe one day he will knock the door and come”.
Part of the success of Families for Freedom, they say, lies not just in the comfort that it’s brought to detainees’ families — who now share photos of their relatives and talk more openly about the issue — but that it’s also helped raised awareness of the horrific conditions in Syria’s prisons and detention centres.
‘They broke me’
“You beg them to kill you after they hang you for hours,” says Ghannam who was imprisoned on terrorism charges after delivering food and medical supplies to the besieged city of Homs in 2011.
After a three-month interrogation where he was raped with a plastic stick, doused in diesel and threatened with a lighter, left in a room with four dead bodies for three days and three nights and slung upside down like a dead cat, he “sang like a canary”.
“They broke me,” he said, after a brutal night of interrogation in the notorious “heaven room” of the Palestine branch of Damascus’s detention centre.
“I really felt I wanted to work with the government, that I was completely wrong, and that the revolution was a conspiracy.”
Ghannam was transferred to Homs central prison and was lucky enough to be released on parole after his friends “hired at least eight lawyers and paid a lot of money”. He fled to Lebanon three days later and was sentenced to eight years in absentia.
“I’m not scared from bombing like I’m scared to be detained,” says Hala. “It’s very horrible.”
Failed negotiations
Negotiations to release the detainees have so far failed. Their plight has been repeatedly sidelined at UN talks in Geneva, Sochi and Astana.
Part of the problem lies in the Assad government’s “reluctance” to address the problem, said Sara Kayyali, Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch.
The release of detainees is “crucial for any forward-looking solution” to the Syrian conflict, Kayyali added, “especially as talks of the conflict winding down and people returning are advanced”.
Hala believes in the West’s power to pressure Assad if there is the political will to do so.
Both women are disappointed by French President Emmanuel Macron’s position on Assad. Macron’s predecessor, François Hollande, had called for Assad’s exit, describing him as a “butcher” of his own people and insisting that “he cannot be part of the solution”.
But Macron says Assad’s departure is no longer a prerequisite, adding that Paris’s priority is fighting terrorism and ensuring Syria does not become a failed state. He has also questioned the Syrian opposition’s credibility.
“If the Assad regime were gone, ISIS would go,” says Hala. “They depend on each other to survive,” referring to Assad’s 2011 release of militant Islamists from Saydnaya prison, some of whom went on to play leading roles within the Islamic State group, Al Nusra Front and other extremist groups.
Ghannam is not optimistic about the detainees’ fate. “There’s no oil behind them, there is no f***** piece of land. What benefits can France get? Maybe reconstruction deals?”
“They’re talking about rebuilding the country — the buildings — but they need to rebuild the families,” says Hala. “If I know that a person is related to the regime and he tortured my brother til death I cannot forgive him.”
FRANCE24 |
Candidates running in Lebanon’s May 6, 2018 parliamentary elections should commit to five key steps to improve women’s rights, Human Rights Watch said today, on International Women’s Day. Political parties should also ensure greater participation of women in parliament by including women on their candidate lists.
Lebanon has made some positive incremental steps in recent years toward protecting women’s rights, but is behind other countries in the region in some respects. In 2014, parliament adopted a landmark law on domestic violence, but it defined domestic violence too narrowly and failed to criminalize marital rape. In 2017, parliament repealed article 522 of the criminal code, which had allowed rapists to escape prosecution by marrying their victim, but left a loophole for cases concerning sex with children ages 15-17 and seducing a virgin girl into having sex with the promise of marriage.
“Despite some recent reforms, Lebanon’s laws still explicitly permit violence and discrimination against women,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Parliamentary candidates should show they are serious about women’s rights by promising to take serious and specific steps to fix laws that are failing women.”
Lebanon should abolish inequality under personal status laws and grant citizenship to children of Lebanese mothers, abolish child marriage, ban all forms of domestic violence including marital rape, end human trafficking, and protect the rights of migrant domestic workers.
Personal Status and Nationality Laws
Lebanon has no civil code covering issues such as divorce, property rights, or care of children. Instead, 15 separate religious laws govern personal status issues. These laws all discriminate against women and none guarantee basic rights. Autonomous religious courts administer these laws with little or no government oversight, often issuing rulings that violate women’s rights. And unlike Lebanese men, Lebanese women cannot pass on their nationality to their children or foreign husbands. Parliamentary candidates should commit to passing a civil personal status law that would guarantee that all citizens are treated equally and amend Lebanon’s nationality law to ensure that Lebanese women can pass on their citizenship to their children.
Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen already provide equal rights to women and men to confer nationality to their children.
“By ceding personal status matters to religious courts without guarantees of basic equality or oversight, parliament has utterly failed to protect women’s rights,” Fakih said. “It is outrageous that Lebanese women cannot pass on citizenship to their children, arbitrarily depriving children of citizenship and leaving some at risk of statelessness.”
Child Marriage
Lebanon has no national minimum age of marriage. Instead, religious courts set the age based on the personal status laws, some of which allow girls under age 15 to marry. Parliament members have introduced multiple bills to set the national minimum age for marriage at 18 – though some would allow for marriage at 16 with a judge’s approval – but parliament has not passed this legislation. Candidates should make a commitment to pass a law to set 18 as the national minimum marriage age.
Lebanon is behind many other countries in the region that have set 18 as the minimum marriage age, including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.
“Early marriage can have dire lifelong consequences, and can often spell the end of a girl’s education and leave her at heightened risk of marital rape, domestic violence, exploitation, and a range of health problems,” Fakih said. “It is inexcusable that parliament has not stepped in to protect girls and end the current mess of inconsistent and inadequate laws.”
Domestic Violence and Sexual Harassment
A landmark 2014 domestic violence law established important protection measures and related policing and court reforms. But the law defines domestic violence narrowly, and failed to specifically criminalize marital rape, which is not a crime under other Lebanese law. It also does not require religious courts to adhere to civil court rulings relating to domestic violence, leaving women trapped in abusive marriages. Some religious courts issue obedience and cohabitation rulings against women, requiring them to return to the marital home. Parts of the law have also yet to be implemented, such as establishing family violence units within the Internal Security Forces and a fund to assist survivors of domestic violence. Meanwhile, parliamentarians have introduced multiple draft laws on sexual harassment, but parliament has yet to take action on this issue.
Parliamentary candidates should promise to support amending this law to end all forms of domestic violence and ensure that the legal definition of rape is comprehensive and does not make exceptions for marital rape. They should also commit to passing a law against sexual harassment.
“Lebanon’s law on domestic violence was an important first step, but fell short,” Fakih said. “Candidates for parliament should promise to finish the job and to close loopholes that still permit violence against women.”
Trafficking
A lack of coordination in the government’s response to sex trafficking puts women and girls at risk. Syrian women appear to be at particular risk of being trafficked into forced prostitution and sexual exploitation in Lebanon. Parliamentary candidates should support more effective enforcement of Lebanon’s anti-trafficking laws and decriminalizing consensual adult sex work so that trafficking victims can report crimes to authorities without fear of arrest.
“Sex trafficking is a stain on Lebanon’s reputation and the government has not done enough to stamp out this crime,” Fakih said. “Parliamentary candidates should promise to remove obstacles to reporting trafficking and providing support to trafficking survivors.”
Migrant Domestic Workers
An estimated 250,000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, the majority of them women, are excluded from labor law protections and often left out of the women’s rights debate. Lebanon has become an outlier on this issue as most of the major countries of destination for migrant domestic workers have instituted such laws. The kafala (sponsorship) system subjects migrant domestic workers to restrictive rules under which they cannot leave or change jobs without their employer-sponsor’s consent, placing them at risk of exploitation and abuse. Candidates should promise to extend labor law protections to domestic workers and to reform the kafala sponsorship system so that workers’ visas are no longer tied to individual sponsors, and so that they can leave their job without the sponsor’s consent.
“We have for years documented reports of rampant abuses against migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, and these women deserve the same protection as everyone else,” Fakih said. “Parliamentary candidates should put an end to a legal framework that facilitates their exploitation and abuse.”
Human Rights Watch |
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was to meet Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo Monday over US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Egypt’s presidency said.
Trump’s move has drawn near universal condemnation, and Palestinian officials say Abbas will refuse to meet US Vice President Mike Pence when he travels to the region later this month.
Sisi has invited Abbas “to a bilateral summit for consultations on Monday in Cairo to discuss developments related to the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital”, said Bassam Radi, a spokesman for the Egyptian presidency.
Official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Abbas and Sisi spoke by telephone on Sunday and “continued consultations about the latest developments after the US administration’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel”.
It said that they agreed “to continue consulting to coordinate common positions”.
Palestine Liberation Organisation official Wasel Abu Yousef told AFP he understood that Jordan’s King Abdullah II would also join Monday’s meeting, but there was no official confirmation of this.
Anger throughout the Muslim and Arab world has included protests in Egypt and Jordan, which also has a special role as the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
In Cairo, students and professors demonstrated at the prestigious Al-Azhar University, a university spokesman said, with pictures on social media showing several hundred protesters.
Dozens of students protested at two other Cairo universities.
Arab foreign ministers on Saturday called on the United States to rescind its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and for the international community to recognise a Palestinian state.
In a resolution after an emergency meeting in Cairo, Arab League member ministers said the United States had “withdrawn itself as a sponsor and broker” of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with its controversial move.
The ministers met at the league’s headquarters in Cairo to formulate a response to the US decision.
Egypt’s top Muslim and Christian clerics have both cancelled scheduled meetings with Pence in protest at the Jerusalem decision.
Israel seized Arab east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
The Palestinians want the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.
The international community does not recognise the ancient city as Israel’s capital, insisting that the issue can only be resolved in negotiations.
FRANCE24/ AFP |
Venezuela’s ruling Socialist Party won at least 90 percent of the 335 mayorships contested in Sunday’s local elections, President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday.
According to the national election board’s latest official count, the socialists won 41 of 42 mayorships counted by late evening. But Maduro said results overnight would show his government had won more than 300 of the polls.
REUTERS |
Fired by one American commander in chief for insubordination, Michael Flynn has now delivered his resignation to another.
President Donald Trump had been weighing the fate of his national security adviser, a hard-charging, feather-ruffling retired lieutenant general who just three weeks into the new administration had put himself in the center of a controversy. Flynn resigned late Monday.
At issue was Flynn’s contact with Moscow’s ambassador to the United States. Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak appear to have discussed U.S. sanctions late last year, raising questions about whether he was freelancing on foreign policy while President Barack Obama was still in office and whether he misled Trump officials about the calls.
The center of a storm is a familiar place for Flynn. His military career ended when Obama dismissed him as defense intelligence chief. Flynn claimed he was pushed out for holding tougher views than the Obama administration about Islamic extremism. But a former senior U.S. official who worked with Flynn said the firing was for insubordination, after the Army lieutenant general failed to follow guidance from superiors.
Flynn stepped down late Monday, ending days of speculation about his fate following reports that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his contacts with Russia.
Once out of government, he disappeared into the murky world of mid-level defense contractors and international influence peddlers. He shocked his former colleagues a little more than a year later by appearing at a Moscow banquet headlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Given a second chance by Trump, Flynn, a lifelong if apolitical Democrat, became a trusted and eager confidant of the Republican candidate, joining anti-Hillary Clinton campaign chants of “Lock Her Up” and tweeting that “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.”
As national security adviser, Flynn required no Senate confirmation vote or public vetting of his record, and his tenure was brief but turbulent.
The Washington Post and other U.S. newspapers, citing current and former U.S. officials, reported last week that Flynn made explicit references to U.S. sanctions on Russia in conversations with Kislyak. One of the calls took place on Dec. 29, the day Obama announced new penalties against Russia’s top intelligence agencies over allegations they meddled in the U.S. election process to help Trump win.
While it’s not unusual for incoming administrations to have discussions with foreign governments before taking office, the repeated contacts just as the U.S. was pulling the trigger on sanctions suggests Trump’s team might have helped shape Russia’s response. They also contradicted denials about such discussions of the sanctions by several Trump administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence.
Flynn later backed off his adamant denials. On Friday, he said he “no recollection” of discussing sanctions policy but “can’t be certain,” according to an official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
He apologized to Pence, who, apparently relying on Flynn’s denials, vouched for him on television. In his resignation letter, Flynn said he held numerous calls with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition and gave “incomplete information” about those discussions to Pence.
For days, Trump was publicly and unusually quiet on the matter. While his aides were declaring the president had confidence in Flynn, Trump privately told associates he was troubled by the situation, according to a person who spoke with him recently.
INSUBORDINATION
Flynn’s sparkling military resume had included key assignments at home and abroad, and high praise from superiors.
The son of an Army veteran of World War II and the Korean war, Flynn was commissioned as a second lieutenant in May 1981 after graduating from the University of Rhode Island. He started in intelligence, eventually commanding military intelligence units at the battalion and then brigade level. In the early years of the Iraq war, he was intelligence chief for Joint Special Operations Command, the organization in charge of secret commando units like SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force. He then led intelligence efforts for all U.S. military operations in the Middle East and then took up the top intelligence post on the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.
Ian McCulloh, a Johns Hopkins data science specialist, became an admirer of Flynn while working as an Army lieutenant colonel in Afghanistan in 2009. At the time, Flynn ran intelligence for the U.S.-led international coalition in Kabul and was pushing for more creative approaches to targeting Taliban networks, including use of data mining and social network analysis, according to McCulloh.
“He was pushing for us to think out of the box and try to leverage technology better and innovate,” McCulloh said, crediting Flynn for improving the effectiveness of U.S. targeting. “A lot of people didn’t like it because it was different.”
It was typical of the determined, though divisive, approach Flynn would adopt at the Defense Intelligence Agency, which provides military intelligence to commanders and defense policymakers. There, he quickly acquired a reputation as a disruptive force. While some applauded Flynn with forcing a tradition-bound bureaucracy to abandon old habits and seek out new, more effective ways of collecting and analyzing intelligence useful in the fight against extremist groups, others saw his efforts as erratic and his style as prone to grandstanding.
In the spring of 2014, after less than two years on the job, he was told to pack his bags.
According to Flynn’s telling, it was his no-nonsense approach to fighting Islamic extremist groups that caused the rift.
A former senior Obama administration official who was consulted during the deliberations disputed that account. Flynn was relieved of his post for insubordination after failing to follow guidance from superiors, including James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, said the official, who asked for anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
CIVILIAN LIFE
Plunged into civilian life for the first time in 33 years, Flynn moved quickly to capitalize on his military and intelligence world connections and experience. He did so in an unorthodox way.
“I didn’t walk out like a lot of guys and go to big jobs in Northrup Grumman or Booz Allen or some of these other big companies,” Flynn told Foreign Policy magazine in 2015.
Instead, he opened his own consulting firm, Flynn Intelligence Group, in Alexandria, Va. He brought in his son, Michael G. Flynn as a top aide, and began assembling a crew of former armed forces veterans with expertise in cyber, logistics and surveillance, and sought out ties with lesser-known figures and companies trying to expand their profiles as contractors in the military and intelligence spheres.
One “team” member listed on the firm’s site was James Woolsey, President Bill Clinton’s former CIA director. Woolsey briefly joined Flynn on Trump’s transition team as a senior adviser, but quit in January. Another was lobbyist Robert Kelley.
Kelley proved a central player in the Flynn Group’s decision to help a Turkish businessman tied to Turkey’s government. At the same time that Flynn was advising Trump on national security matters, Kelley was lobbying legislators on behalf of businessman Ekim Alptekin’s firm between mid-September and December last year, lobbying documents show.
It was an odd match. Flynn has stirred controversy with dire warnings about Islam, calling it a “political ideology” that “definitely hides behind being a religion” and accusing Obama of preventing the U.S. from “discrediting” radical Islam. But his alarms apparently didn’t extend to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government as it cracked down on dissent and jailed thousands of opponents after a failed coup last summer. Erdogan’s power base is among Turkey’s conservative Muslim voters and many affected by his crackdown are secularists.
Shortly before Trump’s election, Flynn wrote an op-ed saying Turkey needed U.S. support and echoing Erdogan’s warnings that a “shady” Turkish Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania should not be protected by the United States. Erdogan accuses the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, of orchestrating the coup attempt and has requested extradition. Obama officials widely described Turkey’s evidence of Gulen’s wrongdoing as insufficient.
Alptekin, the businessman, told The Associated Press he met Flynn several times starting last summer. He wouldn’t detail their conversations. Alptekin said he met mostly with Kelley, a former chief counsel to a congressional subcommittee, who registered with Congress as a lobbyist for Inovo BV, a company Alptekin established in the Netherlands in 2005. Alptekin also is a member of a Turkish economic relations board run by an Erdogan appointee, though he says he has no official relationship with Turkey’s government.
Kelley said Flynn’s consulting firm could help “do something about improving the relations between Turkey and the United States,” Alptekin told the AP. He said he didn’t consider any need for his firm or Kelley to register with the Justice Department as a “foreign agent in this context” because his firm was “not a government entity.”
FOREIGN AGENT?
Kelley also was a registered foreign agent for the National Mobilization Force, a Turkish-backed militia fighting the Islamic State group in Syria. Documents filed with the Justice Department show Kelley was paid $90,000 to “convey the views” of the armed group to Congress, federal officials and the media.
The Justice records do not cite any Kelley affiliation with the Flynn Group. But a December letter from Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., to top federal intelligence officials raised questions about whether Kelley inappropriately represented the militia on behalf of Flynn’s firm, which they said raises “the potential for pressure, coercion, and exploitation by foreign agents.”
Several ethics experts also said Flynn’s firm should have registered with the Justice Department. “If a foreign entity is lobbying Congress on influencing U.S policy, they need to file under the foreign agent act,” said Lydia Dennett, an investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington good government group.
Alptekin said Inovo BV paid Flynn’s firm “tens of thousands of dollars.” Kelley said Flynn’s firm made less than $5,000 for its three months of work on behalf of Alptekin’s company when he filed a lobbying termination notice to Congress on Dec. 1.
Kelley and Flynn Intel Group have not responded to multiple calls and emails from the AP. Flynn said in a statement that Kelley provided to Yahoo News in mid-November that “if I return to government service, my relationship with my company will be severed.”
The Flynn Intel Group’s website no longer operates and AP visits to three northern Virginia locations associated with the firm no longer showed any company activity or identification. Several Flynn Intel Group staffers who worked for the firm and its cyber and flight subsidiaries, FIG Cyber Inc. and FIG Aviation, departed around the November election.
BLIMP IN A BOX
Flynn had other nontraditional business engagements.
In early 2015, he signed on with the cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks as a member of its Public Sector Advisory Council comprising retired military officers working as a “sounding board” to answer “the technology needs of the world’s governments.”
He advised Conversion Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in tech-oriented investments. He was briefly listed as a board director of GreenZone Systems, a technology firm headed by another Flynn Intel Group partner, Iranian-American investor Bijan Kian.
And then there was Drone Aviation, a firm that makes tethered surveillance drones. Flynn was named vice chairman and a board member in May 2016, and said he would promote the firm’s “blimp in a box” concept for military and government use and expand “the role of persistent aerial solutions in the marketplace.”
The company later won a $400,000 Defense Department contract. Drone Aviation paid Flynn a $36,000 annual salary and awarded him 100,000 shares of restricted stock. He was re-elected to the board after Trump’s election but stepped down from the board after being offered his job at the White House.
Another venture was Brainwave Science, a Boston company publicizing its use of “brain fingerprinting,” scans that the firm claims can be used to assess a person’s honesty. Flynn briefly joined the advisory board in February 2016. The firm’s concept is disputed by critics and one adviser left the board after media reports surfaced that he pleaded guilty in 1996 to selling stolen biotech material to Russia’s spy agency.
MEETING PUTIN
Like many former military officials, Flynn boosted his profile by appearing on television news and talk shows, including several networks connected to foreign governments. They include Qatar-backed Al Jazeera and RT, the news network aligned with the Russian government. He has said he wasn’t paid for the appearances.
But a December 2015 trip to RT’s 10th anniversary celebration would put Flynn in some unique company. An RT video from the Moscow event showed Flynn seated next to Putin and rising during a standing ovation following the Russian leader’s address.
Flynn has acknowledged being paid for the appearance, but hasn’t said who wrote the check or for how much. Flynn’s webpage at All American Speakers shows a standard lecture circuit fee in the $30,000-$50,000 range.
According to another attendee at the event, Jill Stein, the former Green Party presidential candidate who won 1 percent of the popular vote last November, RT paid for the Moscow event.
Stein told the AP she turned down the network’s offer to pay for her transportation and stay at Moscow’s Hotel Metropol, where the event was held. “I didn’t think it was appropriate for a presidential candidate to take money from a foreign government,” she said.
Before dinner, Flynn was interviewed on international issues by an RT personality. He then joined Stein and others at a front table, seated with Putin and an entourage of aides. Stein said she didn’t see Flynn and Putin talk privately at the table.
Flynn later told the Post that he had only a brief introduction with Putin. Flynn shrugged off the meeting as “boring.”
Still, several Democratic House members have asked if Flynn accepted payment from RT and if that is a violation of the federal Emoluments Clause, which prohibits even retired military officers from accepting direct or indirect payments from foreign governments.
Flynn was both hopeful and skeptical about Russia relations before joining Trump’s administration. In his 2016 book “The Field of Fight,” Flynn warned that Russia had joined an “enemy alliance” with Iran. But he also talked publicly of Russia as a possible ally with the U.S. in confronting radical Islam.
The Associated Press |
BY GORDON DICKSON
MURCHISON, Texas – Inside his football field-size warehouse an hour’s drive southeast of Dallas, Gary Lynch is busy trying to keep up with orders for his solid-steel bomb shelters.
He offers visitors a tour of a 600-square-foot model under construction for a Saudi customer.
Right now, it’s just a steel shell, he said, but when the work is done it will be a luxurious underground bunker with a master bedroom, four bunk beds, a composting toilet, a living room with satellite television capability, filtered air and water, and a storage closet with room for months of food.
Lynch explains that orders for his most expensive shelters, which can cost as much as several million dollars, have increased since the November election.
“It definitely has picked up a little as Donald Trump emerged as president,” said Lynch, general manager of Rising S Co. on the outskirts of the rural city of Murchison. Lynch said some customers even half-jokingly say they’re trying to protect themselves from a “Trumpocalypse” or “Trumpnado.”
“There’s some people who maybe even voted for Donald Trump and may be worried some of the riots are going to get out of hand and there’s going to be social or civil unrest,” he said.
“Then you’ve got people who didn’t vote for him and are thinking that now that he’s president maybe he’s going to start a war. There’s definitely been some renewed interest from people since the election.”
Doomsday prepping — the act of stockpiling food and other essentials in a reinforced, often-underground shelter — used to be mostly associated with Libertarian-leaning Americans who feared their own government would turn on them.
But now that Trump has taken office, some centrists and left-leaning folks also are building bomb shelters under their homes and businesses, apparently fearing either civil strife or war with an external enemy.
Sales of Rising S’s most luxurious shelters have jumped 700 percent in recent months, he said. Lynch didn’t provide specific data on how many units he typically sells, but he said Rising S Co. recorded about $14 million in sales during the past year.
Although Lynch credits Trump’s surprising rise to power for the latest sales spike, he said a similar jump in sales occurred eight years ago when President Obama took office.
He has been building shelters for 13 years.
“When a Republican is president, the left wants to buy a bunker,” he said. “It’s the opposite when a Democrat is president.”
Popular phrases
The phrase “#Trumpocalypse” has taken on a life of its own on social media such as Twitter.
And a quick search online shows many other examples of people taking advantage of Trump’s knack for controversy to sell their fare.
For example, in Pearsall, south of San Antonio, a Craigslist seller named Dan was offering used buses for $3,000 to $5,000, and explaining on his advertisement that “They make good Trump Bunkers and Bomb Shelters.”
“You Know Who’s Finger will be on the Button,” the ad continues. “Make America Great Again. Buy a Bus. All are welcome. Pro Donald. Pro Hilary. (sic) Can we all be friends again?”
star-telegram |
Thousands of Israelis rallied Saturday in Tel Aviv in support of a Palestinian state ahead of the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.
Banners bearing the slogan “Two states, One Hope” featured in the demonstration organised by supporters of a Palestinian state, including the Israeli NGO Peace Now.
NGO head Avi Buskila said the rally was a protest against “the lack of hope being offered by a government perpetuating occupation, violence and racism”.
“The time has come to prove to the Israelis, the Palestinians and the entire world that an important segment of the Israeli population is opposed to occupation and wants a two-state solution,” he added.
A message of support from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was read out at the rally.
“It is time to live together in harmony, security and stability,” Abbas was quoted as saying.
“Our duty towards future generations is to conclude a peace of the brave.”
Israeli opposition Labour party leader Isaac Herzog attended the rally and threw his support behind a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In 1967, Israel seized the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan during the Six-Day War with neighbouring states.
It later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.
Israel proclaims Jerusalem as its united capital, while the Palestinians claim the city’s eastern part as the capital of their future state.
More than 400,000 Israelis live in settlements on the West Bank which are considered illegal under international law and a major obstacle to Middle East peace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is widely seen as the most right-wing administration in Israeli history and is pressing settlement expansion despite international concern.
Some government members have openly advocated annexing the West Bank.
(AFP) |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began a trip to Europe on Sunday facing widespread criticism of the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state and pressure to engage in the peace process.
In his first meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, he was urged to re-engage with the Palestinians to build goodwill following widespread protests over the capital move.
Speaking alongside Netanyahu after a working lunch, Macron again condemned the unilateral decision on Jerusalem last week by US President Donald Trump as “contrary to international law and dangerous for the peace process.”
“I urged the prime minister to show courage in his dealings with the Palestinians to get us out of the current dead-end,” Macron said after talks in Paris with the Israeli leader.
“Peace does not depend on the United States alone…it depends on the capacity of the two Israeli and Palestinian leaders to do so,” the French leader said.
Echoing a message that European foreign ministers are set to carry during further talks in Brussels on Monday, Macron also urged him to freeze Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories.
Netanyahu has praised Trump’s decision as “historic” and he explained Sunday that Jerusalem “has always been our capital and it has never been the capital of any other people.”
“It has been the capital of Israel for 3,000 years, it has been the capital of the Jewish state for 70 years. We respect your history and your choices and we know that as friends you respect ours. I think this is also central for peace,” he said.
“The sooner the Palestinians come to grips with this reality, the sooner we’ll move toward peace.”
Before leaving Israel, Netanyahu had taken aim at what he called Europe’s “hypocrisy”, for condemning Trump’s statement, but not “the rockets fired at Israel or the terrible incitement against it.”
Pointedly, Macron began his pre-prepared remarks with a clear condemnation “with the greatest of clarity of all forms of attacks in the last hours and days against Israel.”
Despite the obvious differences between the 39-year-old French leader and the Israeli hardliner, there were also attempts to show they had developed a good early working relationship and held common views.
“Does this mean Emmanuel Macron and me agree on everything? No, not all of it, but we’re working it,” Netanyahu said at one point, joking later: “The lunch in the Elysee is superb, the conversation is superb too.”
The two countries are keen to reset ties after often difficult exchanges under ex-president Francois Hollande.
No French initiative, for now
Netanyahu travels to Brussels on Monday where he is expected to hold informal talks over breakfast with Europe’s foreign ministers who will also pressure him over the moribund peace process.
The EU’s diplomatic chief warned on Thursday that the US decision on Jerusalem “has the potential to send us backwards to even darker times than the ones we’re already living in.”
Trump’s announcement on Wednesday has been followed by days of protests and clashes in the Palestinian territories.
Four Palestinians were killed either in clashes or from Israeli air strikes in retaliation for rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.
Tens of thousands have also protested in Muslim and Arab countries, including Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia.
Further protests were held in Lebanon, Indonesia, Egypt and the Palestinian territories on Sunday.
Macron was also asked if France would attempt to launch another peace initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following failed efforts in the past.
“There’s a desire by the Americans to mediate which remains and I don’t want to condemn it ab initio (from the beginning),” he said. “We need to wait for the next few weeks, the next months to see what will be proposed.
“And I think we have to wait to see whether the interested parties accept it or not.”
Netanyahu was an outspoken critic of efforts by former French president Francois Hollande to push a Middle East peace process.
(AFP)/FRANCE24 |
U.S. President Donald Trump sent greetings on Monday to Iranians celebrating the New Year’s holiday known as Nowruz, but used the message to attack Iran’s government, particularly its powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“I wish a beautiful and blessed Nowruz to the millions of people around the world who are celebrating the arrival of spring,” Trump said. He added, however, that the Iranian people were burdened by “rulers who serve themselves instead of serving the people.”
Trump, who has threatened to pull Washington out of a multilateral deal with Tehran to curb its nuclear program, called the Revolutionary Guard “a hostile army that brutalizes and steals from the Iranian people to fund terrorism abroad.”
Trump said in the statement the Guard had spent more than $16 billion to prop up Syria’s government and support militants and terrorists in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
He also accused the group of impoverishing Iran’s people, damaging its environment and suppressing civil rights.
The harsh language contrasted with Trump’s Nowruz statement last year, which made no mention of politics.
In January, Trump delivered an ultimatum to the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear accord, which aimed to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting various trade and economic sanctions.
The Republican president said they must agree to “fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal,” which was agreed to under his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, or he would refuse to extend U.S. sanctions relief on Iran. U.S. sanctions will resume unless Trump issues new “waivers” to suspend them on May 12.
Iran has said that if Washington pulls out of the deal, it will no longer abide by its terms.
In a bid to persuade Washington to remain in the nuclear accord, France urged the European Union on Monday to consider new sanctions on Iran over its involvement in Syria’s civil war and its ballistic missile program.
Nowruz is Iran’s most important national event and is celebrated with family gatherings, vacations and gift-giving. It is also celebrated by millions around the world, including in Turkey, Iraq and parts of South and Central Asia.
REUTERS |
A son of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in Syria.
“Hudayfah al-Badri…the son of the Caliph…was killed in an operation against the Nusayriyyah and the Russians at the thermal power station in Homs,” a statement on the group’s news channel read.
The word Nusayriyyah refers to Syria’s Alawite community.
Despite numerous reports of his own death, Al-Baghdadi remains at large, despite repeated attempts by both the Americans and the Russians to kill him.
The latest, unconfirmed, reports place him at Qaim, in Iraq.
His commanders are now reportedly deploying to areas from where they had fled during the coalition’s aerial campaign.
Reuters, quoting tribal sources in Iraq, have previously reported Baghdadi has three wives – two Iraqis and one Syrian.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry has said that al-Baghdadi has two wives, Asma Fawzi Mohammed al-Dulaimi and Israa Rajab Mahal A-Qaisi.
According to a reporter for the Guardian, al-Baghdadi married in Iraq around the year 2000 after finishing his doctorate. The son of this marriage was 11-years-old in 2014.
Al-Baghdadi is rumoured to have styled himself after the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who led the “Rightly Guided” or Rashidun.
REUTERS/MIRROR |
Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile despite complaints from American officials that it violates a landmark arms control treaty that helped seal the end of the Cold War, administration officials say.
The move presents a major challenge for President Trump, who has vowed to improve relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and to pursue future arms accords.
The new Russian missile deployment also comes as the Trump administration is struggling to fill key policy positions at the State Department and the Pentagon — and to settle on a permanent replacement for Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned late Monday. Mr. Flynn stepped down after it was revealed that he had misled the vice president and other officials over conversations with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington.
The ground-launched cruise missile at the center of American concerns is one that the Obama administration said in 2014 had been tested in violation of a 1987 treaty that bans American and Russian intermediate-range missiles based on land.
The Obama administration had sought to persuade the Russians to correct the violation while the missile was still in the test phase. Instead, the Russians have moved ahead with the system, deploying a fully operational unit.
Administration officials said the Russians now have two battalions of the prohibited cruise missile. One is still located at Russia’s missile test site at Kapustin Yar in the country’s southeast.
The other was shifted in December from that test site to an operational base elsewhere in the country, according to a senior official who did not provide further details and requested anonymity to discuss recent intelligence reports about the missile.
American officials had called the cruise missile the SSC-X-8. But the “X” has been removed from current intelligence reports, indicating that American intelligence officials consider the missile to be operational and no longer a system in development.
The Russia missile program has been a major concern for the Pentagon, which has developed options for how to respond, including deploying additional missile defenses in Europe or developing air-based or sea-based cruise missiles.
But it is politically significant, as well.
It is very unlikely that the Senate, which is already skeptical of Mr. Putin’s intentions, would agree to ratify a new strategic arms control accord unless the alleged violation of the intermediate-range treaty is corrected. Mr. Trump has said the United States should “strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.” But at the same time, he has talked of reaching a new arms agreement with Moscow that would reduce arms “very substantially.”
The deployment of the system could also increase the military threat to NATO nations, which potentially would be one of the principal targets. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is scheduled to meet with allied defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday.
Before he left his post last year as the NATO commander and retired from the military, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove warned that deployment of the cruise missile would be a militarily significant development that “can’t go unanswered.”
Coming up with an arms control solution would not be easy.
Each missile battalion is believed to have four mobile launchers and a larger supply of missiles. The launcher for the cruise missile, however, closely resembles the launcher used for the Iskander, a nuclear-tipped short-range system that is permitted under treaties.
“This will make location and verification really tough,” General Breedlove said in an interview.
NY Times |
The Lebanese government is appealing for $2.68 billion in humanitarian assistance and investments into the country’s infrastructure and public services as part of the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP).
The 2018 LCRP package was announced Thursday following a meeting between Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Minister for Social Affairs Pierre Bou Assi, and United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Philippe Lazzarini.
The funds will be used to provide critical humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees, vulnerable Lebanese and Palestinian refugees, as well as invest in Lebanon’s ailing infrastructure, public services, and local economy.
With Lebanon bearing the brunt of the neighboring civil war, hosting around 1.9 million displaced Syrians, more than 123 national and international partners pledged financial support to avoid a sharp deterioration in humanitarian conditions and the country’s infrastructure.
After renewing the pledge, Lazzarini said that “preserving the stability of Lebanon means preserving tolerance, diversity, and stability in the region,” while praising the country’s “hospitality.”
“No country in the world can – or should – carry alone the challenge that Lebanon is facing. Responsibility-sharing with Lebanon is key,” he added.
Meanwhile, Hariri made his government’s position very clear, assuring that “nobody is going to force anyone to go back if they do not want to go back,” adding that Lebanon “will respect international law.”
AN NAHAR |
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Thursday that China and Russia were assuming “alarming” roles in Latin America, and he urged regional powers to work with the United States instead.
“Latin America doesn’t need new imperial powers that seek only to benefit their own people,” Tillerson said in a speech at his alma mater, the University of Texas in Austin, before embarking on his first multination trip to South America.
“China, as it does in emerging markets throughout the world, offers the appearance of an attractive path to development, but in reality this often involves trading short-term gains for long-term dependency,” Tillerson said. He also derided Russia for selling weaponry to unfriendly, authoritarian governments in the region.
In his remarks, Tillerson laid out in broad terms the Trump administration’s policies toward Latin America and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
After the speech, Tillerson left for Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and other senior officials.
NAFTA talks
The United States and Mexico have had tense relations over President Donald Trump’s proposals to curb illegal immigration and have Mexico pay for a reinforced border wall. This week, the United States, Mexico and Canada also completed a sixth round of talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump often alleges has cost American jobs.
After visiting Buenos Aires and the Argentine mountain resort town of Bariloche, Tillerson is scheduled to head to Lima to meet with Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on issues including the eighth annual Summit of the Americas, set for April 13-14 in Lima.
In Colombia, Tillerson plans to meet with officials including President Juan Manuel Santos. They’re expected to discuss “the surge in coca cultivation and cocaine production, economic issues and the growing refugee population” from neighboring Venezuela, the State Department said in a statement.
During the South American part of the trip, Tillerson is expected to rally the region’s governments in pressing for democratic reforms in Venezuela.
The United States will use “all its political, diplomatic and economic tools to address the situation in Venezuela,” a senior State Department official said at a briefing this week on the trip.
Venezuela is in its fifth year of a worsening political and economic crisis.
Four more sanctioned
In January, the U.S. Treasury added four current or former Venezuelan senior military officials to its sanctions list, accusing them of corruption and repression that have contributed to critical shortages of food and medicine and the erosion of human rights. The European Union also has imposed sanctions, and the Organization of American States’ secretary-general, Luis Almagro, has championed democratic reforms for Venezuela.
On Thursday in Texas, Tillerson said the administration was not advocating for a “regime change” in Venezuela. He did, however, say it would be “easiest” if President Nicolas Maduro chose to leave power on his own.
Maduro, who accuses the United States of leading an international effort to topple his socialist administration, announced in January that he would seek a second six-year term and called for an election by April 30.
Tillerson will wrap up his trip with a stop in Jamaica on February 7.
Disrespect
China accused the United States of disrespecting Latin America after Tillerson warned countries in the region against excessive reliance on economic ties with China.
In a statement released late on Friday responding to Tillerson, China’s Foreign Ministry said cooperation between China and Latin America is based on common interests and mutual needs.
“What the United States said is entirely against the truth and displayed disrespect to the vast number of Latin American countries,” the ministry said.
Cooperation between China and Latin American countries is based on equality, reciprocity, openness and inclusiveness, it added.
“China is a major international buyer of Latin American bulk commodities, and imports more and more agricultural and high value-added products from the region,” the ministry said.
China’s investment in and financial cooperation with Latin American countries are in full accordance with commercial rules and local laws and regulations, it added.
“The development of China-Latin America ties does not target or reject any third party, nor does it affect the interests of third parties in Latin America,” the ministry said.
“We hope that relevant countries abandon outdated concepts of zero-sum games and look at the development of China-Latin America relations in an open and inclusive manner.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Chile last month for a summit with Latin American and Caribbean countries, where he invited them to join China’s massive Belt and Road infrastructure program.
Separately, the U.S. Treasury’s top economic diplomat, David Malpass, on Friday accused China of enabling poor governance in Venezuela by propping up the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro through murky oil-for-loan investments.
New Delhi Times/REUTERS |
Researchers using a high-tech aerial mapping technique have found tens of thousands of previously undetected Mayan houses, buildings, defense works and pyramids in the dense jungle of Guatemala’s Peten region, suggesting that millions more people lived there than previously thought.
The discoveries, which included industrial-sized agricultural fields and irrigation canals, were announced Thursday by an alliance of U.S., European and Guatemalan archaeologists working with Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation.
The study estimates that roughly 10 million people may have lived within the Maya Lowlands, meaning that kind of massive food production might have been needed.
“That is two to three times more (inhabitants) than people were saying there were,” said Marcello A. Canuto, a professor of Anthropology at Tulane University.
Researchers used a mapping technique called LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection And Ranging. It bounces pulsed laser light off the ground, revealing contours hidden by dense foliage.
The images revealed that the Mayans altered the landscape in a much broader way than previously thought; in some areas, 95 percent of available land was cultivated.
“Their agriculture is much more intensive and therefore sustainable than we thought, and they were cultivating every inch of the land,” said Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Research Assistant Professor at Tulane University, noting the ancient Mayas partly drained swampy areas that haven’t been considered worth farming since.
And the extensive defensive fences, ditch-and-rampart systems and irrigation canals suggest a highly organized workforce.
“There’s state involvement here, because we see large canals being dug that are re-directing natural water flows,” said Thomas Garrison, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Ithaca College in New York.
The 810 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of mapping done vastly expands the area that was intensively occupied by the Maya, whose culture flourished between roughly 1,000 BC and 900 AD. Their descendants still live in the region.
The mapping detected about 60,000 individual structures, including four major Mayan ceremonial centers with plazas and pyramids.
Garrison said that this year he went to the field with the LiDAR data to look for one of the roads revealed. “I found it, but if I had not had the LiDAR and known that that’s what it was, I would have walked right over it, because of how dense the jungle is.”
Garrison noted that unlike some other ancient cultures, whose fields, roads and outbuildings have been destroyed by subsequent generations of farming, the jungle grew over abandoned Maya fields and structures, both hiding and preserving them.
“In this the jungle, which has hindered us in our discovery efforts for so long, has actually worked as this great preservative tool of the impact the culture had across the landscape,” noted Garrison, who worked on the project and specializes in the city of El Zotz, near Tikal.
LiDAR revealed a previously undetected structure between the two sites that Garrison says “can’t be called anything other than a Maya fortress.”
“It’s this hill-top citadel that has these ditch and rampart systems … when I went there, one of these things in nine meters tall,” he noted.
In a way, the structures were hiding in plain sight.
“As soon as we saw this we all felt a little sheepish,” said Canuto said of the LiDAR images, “because these were things that we had been walking over all the time.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS |
Baby milk maker Lactalis and French authorities have ordered a global recall of millions of products over fears of salmonella bacteria contamination.
The French company, one of the largest dairy groups in the world, said it has been warned by health authorities in France that 26 infants have become sick since Dec. 1.
According to a list published on the French health ministry’s website, the recall affects customers in countries around the world, including: Britain and Greece in Europe, Morocco and Sudan in Africa, Peru and Colombia in South America and Pakistan, Bangladesh and China in Asia. The United States, a major market for Lactalis, is not affected.
Company spokesman Michel Nalet told The Associated Press on Monday that the “precautionary” recall affects “several million” products made since mid-February.
Lactalis said in a statement that the 26 cases of infection were linked to products branded Picot SL, Pepti Junior 1, Milumel Bio 1 and Picot Riz.
It said it is “sincerely sorry for the concern generated by the situation and expresses its compassion and support to the families whose children fell ill.”
The symptoms of salmonella infection include abdominal cramps, diarrhea and fever. Most people recover without treatment.
The company said a possible source of the outbreak has been identified in a tower used to dry out the milk at a production site in May. Disinfection and cleaning measures have been put in place at the suspected site in western France.
The health scare started earlier this month when Lactalis was told that 20 infants under six months of age had been diagnosed with salmonella infection. The company ordered a first recall that has been extended to more products at the request of French authorities following new cases of infections.
Lactalis is a privately held company headquartered in Laval, western France. It has 75,000 employees in 85 countries and annual revenues of about 17 billion euros ($20 billion). Its other notable brands include President and Galbani cheeses and Parmalat milk.
The Associated Press |
Egypt’s parliament on Wednesday backed plans to hand over two uninhabited Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia under an agreement that has attracted widespread public criticism.
House of Representatives Speaker Ali Abdelaal said the required majority of lawmakers had voted for the agreement, which the government signed last year, despite a court striking it down in March.
“I announce the House’s final approval of the maritime demarcation agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed on April 8, 2016,” Abdelaal said before adjourning the session.
The treaty must now be ratified by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, which is a formality.
The vote came very swiftly. The House Committee on Defence and National Security unanimously backed the plan earlier on Wednesday and referred it to the House for a final vote.
A majority approved it less than four hours later. Those opposed to the measure stood up in protest and chanted “Egyptian, Egyptian” in reference to the islands.
“Today is a terrible day for the Egyptian people, one in which the nation has lost part of its land,” said lawmaker Haitham al-Hariri.
Several legislators opposed to the deal threatened to hold an open-ended sit-in. Some said they were considering resigning in protest.
Sisi’s government last year announced the maritime demarcation agreement with Saudi Arabia, which has given billions of dollars of aid to Egypt, ceding control of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir.
The plan triggered street protests last year from many Egyptians, who say their country’s sovereignty over the islands dates back to a treaty from 1906, before Saudi Arabia was founded.
Dozens of protesters gathered in downtown Cairo outside the press union on Tuesday evening. Eight were arrested, including three journalists, and are being held for 24 hours to be questioned on accusations of illegally protesting and insulting the president, according to state news agency MENA.
The Egyptian and Saudi governments say the islands are Saudi but have been subject to Egyptian protection since 1950 at the request of Saudi Arabia.
JURISDICTION SPATZ
The treaty has been referred to the courts, irritating Riyadh and raising tensions between two Arab allies.
Egypt’s highest administrative court blocked the deal but parliament insisted the matter was constitutionally within its domain.
Parliamentary leaders and government lawyers say the House of Representatives is the only entity allowed to rule on matters of sovereignty while the Supreme AZdministrative Court insists it is within its jurisdiction to scrap the deal.
The Supreme Constitutional Court will rule on who has jurisdiction but has not set a date or even started discussing the issue. It was not immediately clear what the legal situation of the treaty was following Wednesday’s vote.
A government report advising parliament on the terms of the agreement said Egypt would keep administrative control over the islands and Egyptians would not need visas to visit them if they were transferred to Saudi Arabia.
Opposition groups accuse Sisi of handing over the islands to please his Saudi backers and in return for continued aid.
Saudi Arabia was Sisi’s biggest international supporter when he led the military in ousting an elected but unpopular Islamist president in 2013 following mass protests.
Reuters |
The EU and other US trading partners have begun laying the groundwork for a legal challenge to a US border tax proposal in a move that could trigger the biggest case in World Trade Organisation history.
The preliminary moves come as Republicans in Congress are working to convince President Donald Trump to back a major shake-up of the US corporate tax system that would include a new “border adjustment” system. It would see US imports subject to tax and export revenues exempted.
Were the US to adopt the mechanism, it would represent the biggest shake-up in the global corporate tax system in almost a century, according to tax experts.
Members of the WTO and trade experts warn that if the US makes the tax change, it would lead to a major challenge to the global trading system at a time when its most influential member is tilting toward protectionism under Mr Trump.
Jyrki Katainen, the European Commission vice-president who oversees EU trade policy, told the Financial Times that Europe wanted to avoid a trade war with the US as that would be “disastrous” for the world economy.
But he made clear the EU would be willing to act against the US whether it was related to a border tax proposal or the erection of other arbitrary trade barriers.
“If somebody is behaving against our interests or against international rules in trade then we have our own mechanisms to react,” Mr Katainen said. “We have all the legal arrangements within EU, but we are also part of global arrangements like the WTO and we want to respect the global rule base when it comes to trade.”
A defeat in a border tax case could open the door to some $385bn a year in trade retaliation against the US, according to Chad Bown, an expert on WTO trade disputes at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
That would be almost 100 times greater than the largest WTO finding to date. Should the US ignore a WTO ruling, as Mr Trump has threatened in the past, it could lead to the unravelling of the international system designed to prevent trade wars.
“The issue here is just orders of magnitude larger than what the WTO dispute settlement process typically is asked to manage in terms of trade frictions,” said Mr Bown.
The proposal has already set off a major lobbying battle domestically, pitting import-dependent American companies such as Walmart and major exporters such as General Electric. But the EU and other US trading partners are also worried about the impact on their exports and have been deploying lawyers with a view to eventually challenging it before the global trade watchdog.
“Our first assessment is that it is definitely not going to be compatible with the WTO,” said a senior trade official in Geneva, where the WTO is based. “On the sides of many [US] trading partners there are serious doubts about whether or not it can be made WTO compatible.”
Mr Trump has yet to endorse the tax idea, which is being pushed by Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and Kevin Brady, chairman of the House’s tax-writing ways and means committee.
But key advisers have praised it as a way of addressing what they see as the WTO’s unfair treatment of business taxes. US critics bristle at WTO rules that allow countries with VAT-based tax systems to offer rebates on exports while income-based systems such as the US’s cannot do the same.
“The unequal treatment of the US income tax system under biased WTO rules is a grossly unfair subsidy to foreigners exporting to the US and a backdoor tariff on American exports to the world that kills American jobs and drives American factories offshore,” Peter Navarro, the head of Mr Trump’s National Trade Council, said in a recent interview with the FT.
The corporate tax reform efforts are still at the early stages and the border proposal faces major political hurdles. Among the highest are Republicans in the Senate, who have cited WTO compliance as a red line.
Mr Brady said he wanted to make sure that any reforms abided by global trading rules. “We are designing this to be WTO compatible,” he told the FT.
But that is likely to be difficult, trade officials and experts argue, mainly because the Republican proposal is aimed at companies’ cash flow. WTO rules allow tax rebates when they are linked to products but do not when they are to income.
The proposal, officials and experts said, also appears to violate two fundamental WTO principles — that members are not allowed to discriminate against imports or subsidise their exports.
Jim Bacchus, a former US congressman who served as a top judge at the WTO, said the treatment of the US business tax system was Washington’s longest standing gripe with the WTO and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that underpins it.
A US move to allow export rebates in the 1990s was challenged by the EU and struck down by the WTO after years of legal wrangling, prompting a scramble in Congress to rewrite tax rules.
The latest Republican proposal would rekindle that dispute and also risked other trade retaliation outside the WTO’s polite confines, said Mr Bacchus. “It will help no one for the US and other countries to engage in a whole slew of WTO cases and other retaliatory tit-for-tat actions over border tax adjustments,” he said.
The Financial Times |
The UN found evidence of military co-operation by North Korea to develop Syria’s chemical weapons programmes.
According to a panel of experts, both Syria and Myanmar continue to work with North Korea’s main arms exporter, KOMID, which is on the UN’s sanctions blacklist.
Between 2012 and 2016, there were more than 40 previously unreported shipments from North Korea to front companies for Syria’s Scientific Studies Research Council (CERS) — which is a key institute for the country’s chemical programme.
The UN report released on Friday said there was “substantial new evidence” pertaining to Pyongyang’s military co-operation with Damascus, including at least three visits by North Korean technicians to Syria in 2016.
One North Korean technical delegation in August 2016 involved the “transfer of special resistance valves and thermometers known for use in chemical weapons programmes”, the report said.
“Technicians continue to operate at chemical weapons and missile facilities at Barzei, Adra and Hama,” a member-state, which was not named, told the panel.
Syria denied co-operation with North Korea on their chemical weapons programmes, saying that the only experts it was hosting from the country were involved in sports.
Meanwhile, the report said the North Korea was providing Myanmar with “ballistic missile systems … in addition to a range of conventional weapons, including rocket launches and surface-to-air missiles”.
The UN said that North Korea is flouting sanctions by exporting coal, iron, steel and other banned commodities, earning nearly $200 million (Dh734.5m) in revenue in 2017.
North Korean diplomats, in particular trade representatives, continue to provide logistical support for arms sales and help organise exchanges for military technicians, it said.
While sanctions have been significantly broadened, this “expansion of the regime is yet to be matched by the requisite political will” to implement the measures, the experts said.
The panel said 2018 offered a “critical window of opportunity before a potential miscalculation with disastrous implications for international peace and security.”
North Korea “continued to export almost all the commodities prohibited in the resolutions, generating nearly $200 million in revenue between January and September 2017”, said the report.
Coal shipments were delivered to China, Malaysia, South Korea, Russia and Vietnam by ships using “a combination of multiple evasion techniques, routes and deceptive tactics”.
Last year, the Security Council adopted a series of resolutions to tighten and expand exports bans aimed at cutting off revenue to North Korea’s military programmes.
The US led the push for tough economic sanctions after North Korea’s sixth nuclear test and a series of ballistic missile launches that raised fears that the US mainland could soon be within reach.
Seven ships have been barred from ports worldwide for violating UN sanctions with coal and petroleum transfers, but the experts said much more must be done to confront “these rampant illicit activities”
The panel found that North Korea “is already flouting the most recent resolutions by exploiting global oil supply chains, complicit foreign nationals, offshore company registries, and the international banking system”.
THE NATIONAL |
Lebanon plans to increase its military presence along its southern border with Israel, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Thursday at a meeting in Rome, where he is seeking financial support for the armed forces.
Bolstering Lebanon’s army and internal security forces is seen as a way for the international community to keep Hezbollah, which has helped sway the Syrian civil war in President Bashar al-Assad’s favour, from broadening its clout in the Lebanese heartland.
Some 40 countries participated in the meeting, along with and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. While some financial aid was announced on Thursday, Hariri said that the goal of the meeting was not to gather pledges.
The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) took no part in the 2006 war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah militia. Since then, it has received more than $1.5 billion in U.S. military assistance and, in the last seven years, training and support from U.S. special forces.
“We will be sending more LAF troops to the south, and we stress our intention to deploy another regiment,” he said, adding that Israel “remains the primary threat to Lebanon”.
“While we are thinking of ways to move from a state of cessation of hostilities to a state of permanent ceasefire, Israel continues to make plans to build walls on reservation areas along the blue line,” Hariri said.
In a joint statement, the conference participants said Lebanon should “accelerate effective and durable deployments to the South”.
The U.N. Security Council has allowed for 15,000 Lebanese troops to be deployed along the border since the end of the 2006 conflict.
On Thursday, Hariri said he presented the five-year plans for Lebanon’s military and security services to the participants, and each country would decide in the coming months how it could help.
The European Union pledged 50 million euros ($61.6 million)to Lebanon’s security forces, and Hariri said France had created a 400-million-euro credit facility to purchase “equipment” for Lebanon’s military and security forces. The UK has pledged an additional $13 million, it said on Twitter.
“I’m extremely satisfied with the outcome,” Hariri said after the conference.
Hariri dismissed concerns that weapons intended for the Lebanese army would end up in the hands of Hezbollah, saying: “We have never lost a weapon to anyone… and it will never happen in the future.”
On Thursday, Hariri reiterated his commitment to the policy of “dissociation”, which is meant to keep the deeply fractured state out of regional conflicts such as the Syrian civil war.
Guterres told reporters: “This is the moment in which the international community needs to express its full support (for Lebanon).”
Italian caretaker Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Lebanon’s stability was vital to region.
“Lebanon must be sheltered from the forces of destabilization,” he said. “Assuring Lebanon’s stability assures the broader security of the Mediterranean and, as a consequence, of Europe.”
The Rome meeting is the first of three aimed at helping Lebanon stimulate its economy and weather the neighbouring civil war and attendant refugee crisis.
In April, donors will meet in Paris, where Lebanon is seeking up to $16 billion in infrastructure investments. A meeting in Brussels follows, intended to help Lebanon cope with the more than 1 million Syrian refugees it is hosting.
REUTERS |
riva;Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised no one when he was re-elected Sunday for a fourth term. Nearly two decades ago though few would have guessed the dull former spy would hold his country in an iron grip that will extend for a quarter century.
In the autumn of 1999, the Kremlin – and indeed all of Russia – was in a serious crisis. A spate of apartment bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities had killed more than 290 people. The president, Boris Yeltsin, was ailing and spending most of his days in an inebriated state. The ruble crisis had taken its toll on the economy, and Yeltsin’s inner circle was desperate to find a successor who could hold the country together.
A new man had just taken over as prime minister — the fifth in less than two years – and ordinary Russians knew precious little about the drab, gray former KGB agent who filled the post.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was the former head of the FSB (Federal Security Service), the successor to the communist-era KGB. A tough kid whose frequent scraps on the streets of Leningrad [later St. Petersburg] led him to embrace judo, Putin was no stranger to the dark underbelly of Russian politics. But he had none of the charisma of his political mentors, including Yeltsin and former St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who had enabled his rise to the prime minister’s post.
Just weeks after the devastating September 13, 1999, bombing of a Moscow apartment building though, Putin issued a public threat that would catapult him into the hearts of ordinary Russians, who in turn would help turn him into “the world’s most powerful person”, according to several magazine listings
Blaming Chechen militants for the still-unsolved apartment attacks, Putin delivered a blunt threat: ”If we catch them in the toilet, we will rub them out in the outhouse.”
His crude language, complete with Leningrad street slang, shocked the Russian populace – in a good way. The newcomer’s tough-guy image was pure manna for a humiliated nation weary of the Yeltsin-era chaos and mismanagement. With his tough talk, Putin promised to make Mother Russia great again, and if that meant crushing the opposition and squashing human rights, it was a cost Russians were willing to pay.
In the next few years, the mainly Muslim North Caucasus would be pummeled in a brutal crackdown by Russian security services. The mystery of the 1999 apartment bombings was never solved — like many attacks and assassinations in Russia. Critics inside the country have long whispered that the attacks were conducted by “Putin’s people” and years later, Sen. John McCain told the US Congress that “there remains credible allegations that Russia’s FSB had a hand in carrying out these attacks”.
True or not, the apartment block attacks and subsequent war in Chechnya were a perfect career kick-starter. By the end of 1999, Yeltsin had resigned and Putin took over as Russia’s acting president. In the presidential elections the following year, the drab former spy chief swept the polls with an overwhelming majority.
Putin would remain at the helm of power for the next 18 years, including a four-year stint as prime minister, when he continued to call the shots in Russia. With his latest triumph in Sunday’s presidential poll, the 65-year-old Russian politician is set to serve another six years in office, which will take him to a quarter century in power – a Kremlin longevity surpassed only by Josef Stalin.
From ‘extreme guard’ to ‘extreme aggression’
Nearly two decades ago, when a wooden Putin was sworn into power, Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist and author of the book, “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,” noted that the former FSB leader projected, “both extreme guard and extreme aggression with every step.” Putin, she concluded, is a “hoodlum turned iron-handed ruler.”
While his iron-handed style of ruling was never in doubt from the get-go, it was in his third term in office that Putin appeared to cast off extreme guard for extreme aggression with the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
It was an act of hostility against a sovereign state that was met with a weak response from the international community, paving the way for Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian conflict the next year. While Moscow had resolutely backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime since a popular uprising broke out in 2011, the 2015 Russian air strikes in Syria marked Moscow’s first military intervention in the Middle East in decades.
With the Russian entry in the Syrian fray, experts promptly began drawing parallels with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Responding to the news, then US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter noted that the Russian military operation was “doomed to fail”.
By early 2018, that assessment had somewhat changed. “Putin’s diplomacy is particularly successful in the Middle East, where Russia has many economic, energy and military interests,” said Arnaud Dubien from the Paris-based French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS) in an interview with FRANCE 24.
As for the predicted drain of the Syrian military operation on Russian resources, even that assessment had changed. “The political gains are very lucrative from an economic point of view for Russia, compared with the money and resources it has invested in the region. Although the costs for Syria haven’t been made public, they are estimated at €3-5 million per day. Moscow can cover these costs, and it’s far less than the Americans have spent in Afghanistan for example,” explained Dubien.
‘It’s not the economy, stupid’
Economics was never Putin’s forte — and that didn’t seem to matter. From very early in his career, Putin set out to prove the economists and politicians monitoring the markets wrong. While Western leaders accept the Bill Clinton election campaign maxim, “It’s the economy, stupid,” Putin has long understood that when it comes to Russia, national pride matters far more than the purse.
With every fresh round of economic sanctions against Russia, experts have debated whether the economy’s dependence on oil and gas would spark the political downfall of Putin. But that has not happened so far and the black belt judo champion-politician appears to weather out all manner of storms, including the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in a British cathedral city.
Shortly after the annexation of Crimea, the US and the EU expanded sanctions on key Russian officials and entities. Following allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, sanctions were further widened to include members of Putin’s inner circle.
Over the years, Putin’s inner circle of advisors, former KGB officials, judo partners and their sons have grown fabulously wealthy and some experts believe that coterie of insiders is now controlling the Kremlin.
While Putin cultivates his tough guy image — with publicity photos of the Russian strongman riding horses shirtless in Siberia and zooming on a motorcycle with the Night Wolves bikers’ gang around the Black Sea coast – the billionaires in their regulation suits are calling the shots, according to some Russia insiders .
It’s an assessment that goes down well with Putin’s supporters, who can blame the inner circle – not the president – when for their everyday hardships and the spiraling corruption across Russia.
Nearly three decades ago, when the fall of the Berlin Wall spelt the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, Putin was a lowly KGB apparatchik in a backwater posting in the East German city of Dresden.
As the events of history swept his nation, Putin was reduced to gathering news clips for intelligence briefings that no one was reading back in Moscow. The heady days of liberation and perestroika never impressed him and as he prepares to start his fourth term in office, it’s a lesson, he’s not about to forget.
FRANCE 24 |
BY Michael McFaul
I’m trying hard to keep an open mind about President Trump, but it closed just a little further after his flippant comments about expulsion of employees at U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia. In response to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s outrageous demand to reduce U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia by 755 people, Trump said, “I want to thank him [Putin] because we’re trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll.”
That response made me wonder whether our president thinks seriously about defending and advancing American national interests before he speaks. It most certainly is not in our interest to reduce our staff at our embassy and consulates in Russia by 755 people.
First and foremost, our ability to obtain information about Russia will be drastically constrained by this reduction. There are representatives of dozens of U.S. government agencies and departments, not just the State Department, in Russia. All of them now will be less able to inform their agencies back home about Russia.
We will have fewer people gathering data about Russia’s military modernization programs — both nuclear and conventional. We will have fewer people acquiring information about Russian foreign policy decision-making. We will have fewer people writing cables about economic trends in Russia. Our national security team in Washington, including Trump, will be less informed about Russia as a result of this staff reduction. That may be good for Putin. That’s bad for the United States.
Second, we also will have less capacity to conduct diplomacy, either the formal kind between the State Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or those informal relationships that develop between American and Russian soldiers, economists or astronauts that help to nurture ties between our two governments. Trump claims he wants better ties with Russia, but that’s harder to do with a skeletal team in Moscow.
The embassy also supports the verification of treaties, such as the New START Treaty and other Russian international obligations. How can it be in the national interest to have less capacity for these activities? That’s good for Putin. That’s not good for the United States.
Finally, we will have fewer resources to engage Russian society. The embassy staff that runs exchange programs will be cut. Those working in our public diplomacy shop will have fewer people. Diplomats will have fewer meetings with civil society leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, religious leaders and human rights activists. That’s good for Putin. That’s not good for the United States.
The loss of our Russian employees will be especially devastating. Some of our Russian national experts in nuclear physics, economics, politics and military affairs have worked for decades at our embassy. They have invaluable experience, expertise and contacts. Reducing their number serves Putin’s interests, not ours. (It will also be nearly impossible for them to find new jobs in Russia.)
So when Trump praises Putin for these reductions, what country’s interests is he advancing?
Trump also sounds weak when making such conciliatory statements toward Putin. The Russian president — whom Trump admires as a “strong leader” — did not praise President Barack Obama for kicking out 35 Russian diplomats in response to Russia’s interference in our 2016 presidential elections. Russian leaders, including even Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Twitter, now openly mock Trump’s incompetence regarding foreign policy, yet he does nothing to push back. That’s bad for our Russia policy and damaging to the United States’ international reputation more generally.
Trump can correct his mistake. He can respond to Putin by negotiating a smaller reduction. He can respond by some act of retaliation such as closing down a Russian consulate (save Putin some money!). Or at a minimum, he can make a statement in solidarity with those serving him and our country in Russia. In such a statement, he could correct the shocking factual error he made today when he said that Putin “let go” our employees. (Our diplomats don’t work for Putin, and they won’t be fired, just reassigned.) Or if a statement is too onerous, how about a tweet? Here’s an example for you, Mr. President, from John A. Heffern, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe:
“The State and inter-agency community is thinking about our colleagues in Moscow and Consulates as they prepare for difficult weeks ahead.”
What was most upsetting about Trump’s comments was his complete lack of empathy, support or respect for his fellow American public servants. Every American working at our embassy and consulates took an oath to serve our great country. They endure harassment – tires slashed, apartments broken into, helicopters swooping down on their cars, and even sometimes beatings and guns to their head – to serve our country. Many serve away from their families. That’s life in the Foreign Service, life in the Marines, life in the Commerce Department. They are dedicated American patriots who deserve to be defended by their leader, the president of the United States. On Thursday, they were not.
The Washington Post |
By JUDITH MISCHKE
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday announced the partial pullout of Russian troops from Syria, after an unexpected visit to the country during which he meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to media reports.
The RIA Novosti news agency reported that Putin ordered “the defense minister and the chief of general staff to start withdrawing the Russian group of troops to their permanent bases,” during his visit to the Hmeimim air base while on route to Egypt, the BBC reported.
“A significant part of the Russian troop contingent located in Syria is returning home to Russia,” Putin said, adding that if “terrorists raise their heads again,” Russia would “carry out such strikes on them which they have never seen.”
Putin declared in March 2016 that he was planning to reduce the number of Russian troops in Syria, the BBC said.
POLITICO |