VW and Ford team up on trucks, with joint deals on EVs and self-driving cars likely to follow

Abstract: DETROIT - Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. said on Tuesday they will join forces on commercial vans and pickups and are exploring joint development of electric and self-driving technology in moves meant to save the automakers billions of dollars. Ford and VW announced their partnership against the backdrop of the Detroit auto show. The tie-up, which starts with sales of vans and medium-sized pickups in 2022, will not involve a merger or equity stakes, the companies said. “It is no secret that our industry is undergoing fundamental change, resulting from widespread electrification, ever stricter emission regulation, digitization, the shift towards autonomous driving, and not least the changing customer preferences,” Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess told reporters and analysts on a conference call. “Carmakers around the globe therefore are investing heavily to align their portfolios to future needs and accelerate their innovation cycles,” he added. “In such an environment, it just makes sense to share investment.” A deal centered around vans and pickups had been expected. Investors are now focused on the potential for additional deals they believe could offer greater savings. Those include potential deals around development of electric or self-driving vehicles, as well as combining forces in markets including North America, South America, Europe or China. The two CEOs did not discuss in detail alliances in specific markets including Latin America, where Ford is losing money. The expanding alliance, which will be governed by a joint committee that includes the CEOs of both companies, highlights the growing pressure on global automakers to manage the costs of developing electric and self-driving vehicles, as well as technology to meet tougher emissions standards for millions of internal combustion vehicles they will sell in coming years. “You can’t do this alone,” Ford’s chief executive, Jim Hackett, said on the call. Ford will provide more details on how the alliance affects the company’s regional operations in coming weeks, but does not expect any job cuts in its plants as a result of the alliance, he said. The American automaker will engineer and build medium-sized pickups for both companies, Volkswagen said. Ford officials said the VW pickups will initially be available only in the South American, European and African markets. Ford will also engineer and build larger commercial vans for European customers, while Volkswagen will develop and build a city van. Vans could be built in Ford’s plant in Turkey, VW said. The companies estimate the commercial van and pickup cooperation will yield improved annual pretax operating results starting in 2023. Ford and VW have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop electric and self-driving vehicles, Diess said. Both executives said they were optimistic those deals would be finalized but provided no timeline. Sources previously said the framework of such a deal would include VW investing in Ford’s autonomous vehicle operations, including its Argo AI business. “Automakers aren’t just competing with each other anymore, they’re under intense pressure from well-funded tech companies,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of industry analysis at Edmunds. “Cutting costs by sharing vehicle architectures and manufacturing facilities is just table stakes in this new world,” she added. Europe’s biggest automaker and the No. 2 U.S. automaker have been exploring closer cooperation as trade frictions force carmakers to rethink where they build vehicles for Europe, the United States and China. Slowdowns in the world’s largest auto markets — China and the United States — have ratcheted up the pressure to cut costs. The tie-up with Volkswagen is a big bet for Ford’s Hackett since he took over in May 2017 from the ousted Mark Fields with the mandate to speed up decision-making and cut costs. Some analysts and investors have been frustrated by Ford’s laggard stock price and a perceived lack of details from Hackett about the Michigan-based automaker’s $11 billion restructuring. The two companies previously shared vehicle development and assembly in South America in a joint venture called Autolatina, which was dissolved in 1995. Last week, Ford said it would cut thousands of jobs, discontinue building money-losing vehicles and look at closing plants as part of a turnaround effort for its unprofitable European business. Ford’s president of global markets, Jim Farley, said on the conference call that the company will do “whatever it takes” to get Europe back to profitability. Hackett also reiterated that Ford, which is controlled by the Ford family, remains committed to the dividend, which some investors have speculated could be at risk. Last month, Volkswagen announced another €3 billion ($3.4 billion) of cost cuts as part of its effort to improve profit margins and fund its shift to electric cars and automated driving. On Monday, Volkswagen said it would invest $800 million to build an electric vehicle plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to congratulate the city and state in a post on Twitter the following day. But the White House has been pushing to end subsidies on electric vehicles that would help the plant and the alliance.

carmakers ford volkswagen self-driving ev


Nissan plans to file damages suit against Carlos Ghosn over misuse of funds, source says

Abstract: Nissan Motor Co. plans to file a civil suit against ousted Chairman Carlos Ghosn to claim damages resulting from the alleged misuse of company funds, a person with knowledge of the issue said, adding to the high-profile executive’s legal headaches. Ghosn, who remains chairman and chief executive of Nissan’s French partner Renault SA, has already been charged with three counts of financial misconduct and has been held at a detention center in Tokyo for nearly two months. On Tuesday, a Tokyo court denied his request for release on bail, raising the possibility that he may remain in custody for months before his trial begins. Ghosn denies the charges against him, which include understating his salary for a total of eight years and temporarily transferring personal financial losses to Nissan’s books. “The broader investigation (into Ghosn’s alleged financial misconduct) continues to expand, so we will file a suit after that issue has been sorted out,” said the person familiar with the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. A civil suit could seek losses related to the alleged use of company funds to pay for the executive’s residences, donations to universities and payments to a Saudi businessman who sources previously said helped Ghosn out of financial difficulties. Nissan declined to comment on the issue. Ghosn regularly spent more than 100 days a year flying between Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama and cities such as Paris, and had residences in Tokyo, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam and Beirut. Nissan had been providing those residences to the executive, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, but people inside the company with knowledge of the issue said the company was only aware that it had been paying rent for Ghosn’s apartment in Tokyo. It was reported last month that payments for some of Ghosn’s residences were portioned out and processed through a Nissan unit in the Netherlands called Zi-A Capital BV and its subsidiaries, which initially had been set up to invest in technology startups. Nissan has confirmed that payments related to residences and other expenses such as a yacht club membership and donations to universities in Lebanon, Ghosn’s ancestral homeland, had violated company procedures and its code of conduct, according to another person with knowledge of the issue. It is also considering filing for damages related to €7 million ($7.98 million) in compensation paid last year to Ghosn from a Dutch unit set up by Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., that person said on condition of anonymity, adding that Nissan’s internal investigation has confirmed that those payments were made without the knowledge of the unit’s board. Ghosn’s arrest sent shock waves through the auto industry and rocked Nissan’s alliance with Mitsubishi and Renault. Having been credited with masterminding Nissan’s financial turnaround two decades ago, the executive has since been removed from chairmanship positions at both Nissan and Mitsubishi.


First human rights TV channel vows to 'give a voice to voiceless'

Abstract: LONDON - The world’s first television channel dedicated to human rights was launched in London on Tuesday with a promise to deliver hidden stories ignored by mainstream media into people’s living rooms. The International Observatory of Human Rights said its web-based channel would bring human rights issues to audiences in over 20 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. “There are so many people in the world who cannot speak up, and it seems to be getting worse and worse,” IOHR director Valerie Peay said at the official launch at London’s Frontline Club, a gathering place for media. “You have got a lot of niche channels out there, but so far not one dedicated to human rights. We want to bring this into people’s homes.” Topics will include refugees, press freedom and the incarceration of journalists, extremism, women’s rights, LGBT issues and the plight of the world’s stateless people. “We live in a world of 24-hour news cycles and often stories get lost and we see human rights being sidelined,” Peay said. “(This) is about joining up the dots so people hopefully engage with human rights and make a difference.” Programs in the pipeline will look at China 30 years after the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests, the positive and negative impacts of technology on women, and the human rights implications of Brexit. Yalda Hakim, a presenter and journalist with the BBC, told the launch event that the channel aimed “to give a voice to the voiceless” and “to make human rights sexy” in a world where attention spans are shrinking and sound bites rule. Broadcasts can be viewed via the netgem.tv interactive platform and will shortly be available via a mobile app. Programming is in English, but IOHR eventually hopes to broadcast in other languages including Farsi, Turkish, Arabic and Russian.


62 million Latin Americans living in extreme poverty, the highest level since 2008, says U.N. agency

Abstract: NEW YORK - The number of people living in extreme poverty in Latin America increased in 2017 to the highest level in almost a decade despite an improvement in government social spending policies, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said the proportion of people in extreme poverty, which is characterized by lack of access to basic human necessities like food and shelter, rose to 10.2 percent of the population in 2017, or 62 million people, from 9.9 percent in 2016. The figure is the highest since 2008 and largely due to an economic deterioration in Brazil, which has only begun to rebound in the last year from its worst recession in decades. Brazil has about 200 million people, making it Latin America’s most populous nation. “We had years of very low economic growth and the impact has been mostly in unemployment,” Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of ECLAC, told Reuters in Santiago. Poverty on a more generalized basis declined in Chile, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic from 2012 to 2017, largely due to an increase in work income. But conditions worsened in Brazil, with extreme poverty rising to 5.5 percent of the population in 2017, from 5.1 percent in the previous year, ECLAC said.

brazil
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poverty
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'Junk' science? For some crabs at least, size does matter

Abstract: Size does matter, at least when it comes to some hermit crabs, who appear to have evolved longer penises so they can stay in their shells to protect their homes during sex. The so-called private parts for public property theory posited by the research published on Wednesday tackles the question of how penis size relates to home size, for crabs anyway. Crabs that live in shells face the risk that interlopers will try to steal their homes while they are otherwise distracted by mating. That risk is even more pronounced for certain types of hermit crabs, who “remodel” their shells by removing some internal structures. The renovations make the shells more spacious and desirable, but also more difficult to cling onto, particularly in the throes of passion. As a result, Mark Laidre, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Dartmouth University, began exploring whether the crabs most vulnerable to theft might have evolved longer penises “to facilitate safe sex.” “In theory, longer penises could enable individuals to reach out to sexual partners while simultaneously maintaining a safe grip on their property with the rest of their body, thus safeguarding property against thieves while having sex,” Laidre wrote in the study in Royal Society Open Science. To test the theory, Laidre set about the unenviable task of measuring members — specifically, seeing how the penises of 328 specimens of various types of hermit crab stacked up. If his theory was correct, he expected to find that crabs with the remodeled and most covetable shells would have the longest penises, while those with unmodified shells would have slightly shorter ones, and hermit crabs with no shells would be the least generously endowed of all. He also wanted to rule out other possibilities, including that penis length was based on whether crabs were land or sea-based, or correlated with their overall body size. And after a series of intimate examinations of museum specimens, Laidre found the results bore out his theory. The hermit crab with the largest penis relative to body size was the Coenobita species, the only one occupying the remodeled and more vulnerable shell homes. Crabs with unremodeled homes presented the next longest penises, while those who shed their shells as adults were found to have the shortest of all three types. “All other hypotheses for these penis size patterns came up short,” Laidre wrote. And the crabs might not be the only ones, with Laidre positing that the theory could apply to other animals “including those with valuable but non-portable property.” He suggested further research could focus on examining the different types of “remodeling” crabs do to their shell homes, to see if variation in renovation is reflected in penis size. And he posited that for animals who have to defend territory that can’t be carried around on their backs, a different trend might hold: smaller penises but larger “fighting structures” like claws. Further research could “explore such trade-offs by examining relative weapon and penis size in relation to private property value,” Laidre wrote.


Congo Ebola death toll tops 400

Abstract: KINSHASA - The death toll from the latest outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has passed the 400 mark in the east and northeast, health authorities said Tuesday. “Since the start of the epidemic, the total number of cases is 658 — 609 confirmed and 49 probable. In total there have been 402 deaths” in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, a health ministry bulletin stated. Health authorities also confirmed 237 cases of “persons cured,” with a further “200 suspect cases still under investigation. The health ministry noted a “positive trend in the epidemic in Beni,” with no new reported cases in the eastern city in a region that is also caught up in violence blamed on Islamist rebels from across the Ugandan border. “Since the start of vaccinations on Aug. 8, 2018, 60,460 people have been vaccinated, including 19,952 in Beni,” according to an official tally. In December, the United Nations said children accounted for one-third of Ebola cases in DR Congo in this latest outbreak of a highly contagious disease, the 10th since the first in 1976 hit the northwestern province of Equateur. On that occasion the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said it and its partners had identified more than 400 children orphaned or isolated by the current outbreak, which began last August, putting fatalities at around 300 at that stage. In 1995, an outbreak in the western city of Kikwit killed 256 of 315 people sickened, according to World Health Organization figures.


Paul Manafort misled grand jury on Trump administration contacts, Robert Mueller filing says

Abstract: NEW YORK - Paul Manafort misled special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators and a federal grand jury about his communications with people in the Trump administration after the 2016 election, prosecutors said in a court filing. Prosecutors on Tuesday cited a May 26, 2018, text to Manafort by someone with apparent access to President Donald Trump, who is referred to as POTUS. “If I see POTUS one on one next week am I ok to remind him of our relationship?” the person wrote. After Manafort replied, “Yes,” he added, “Even if not one on one.” The Mueller filing, which was heavily redacted, came as prosecutors provided further information to a federal judge that Manafort lied in five different ways after he pleaded guilty and was supposed to be cooperating with the investigation. Last week, Manafort’s lawyers inadvertently said in a poorly redacted filing that he had shared polling data during the 2016 presidential campaign with an associate tied to Russian intelligence. The filing on Tuesday makes no public reference to the polling data.

robert mueller
potus
donald trump
paul manafort
russia probe


German spy agency to launch anti-extremism probe into far-right opposition party AfD

Abstract: BERLIN - Germany’s domestic spy agency will investigate Alternative for Germany (AfD) to see whether the anti-immigrant party’s policies breach constitutional safeguards against extremism, its chief said on Tuesday. The BfV has classified Germany’s main opposition party as a “case to investigate,” domestic intelligence chief Thomas Haldenwang said, but the probe would fall short of full-blown surveillance of the AfD. Germany’s constitution contains strict protections against extremism, allowing for the close monitoring and even the outlawing of far-left or far-right parties. The measure is rare, though the BfV has previously monitored other political parties. The AfD surged into the national parliament in a 2017 election, drawing votes from mainstream parties by focusing on voters’ concerns over immigration. It is represented in all 16 of Germany’s regional parliaments. “The BfV has initial indications that the AfD’s policies are against the democratic constitutional order,” Haldenwang told a news conference in Berlin. “But those indications are not sufficiently concentrated to start monitoring the party using espionage methods,” he said. Haldenwang, whose predecessor, Hans-Georg Maassen, was moved over his alleged far-right sympathies, said the spy agency would pay closer attention to the AfD’s youth wing and elements close to regional AfD leader Bjoern Hoecke. Hoecke has decried Germany’s main memorial to Holocaust victims as a “monument of shame.” The BfV said some members close to Hoecke had ties to organizations that have already been classified as extremist. “Whoever discriminates against people on the basis of their origins is being racist and nationalist. Parts of the AfD are a case for the domestic intelligence office,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeted, alluding to the report. “But observing them won’t solve the problems. Above all we need to deal with the AfD objectively and politically.” AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland condemned Haldenwang’s announcement: “It is completely clear that we think this BfV decision is wrong. It’s also completely clear that we will take legal action against this decision.” Haldenwang said the BfV was concerned by a increase in momentum among right-wing extremist groups in recent years. The German state of Thuringia said in September it would examine whether the regional chapter of the AfD was pursuing unconstitutional goals. At that time, the states of Lower Saxony and Bremen also said their own security services tasked with policing unconstitutional activity had placed the regional chapters of the AfD’s youth wing under surveillance because of suspected ties to extremists.

immigration terrorism germany extremism holocaust afd bfv


'El Chapo' trial witness tells of $100 million bribe drug lord allegedly paid to Pena Nieto

Abstract: NEW YORK/MEXICO CITY - A witness at the U.S. trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman testified on Tuesday that he previously told U.S. authorities the accused Mexican drug lord once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Alex Cifuentes, who has said he was a close associate of Guzman for years, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal court. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered, “That’s right.” Reuters could not immediately reach Pena Nieto for comment. His former spokesman and other former officials did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment. Pena Nieto was president of Mexico from December 2012 until November 2018. He previously served as governor of the state that includes Mexico City. Guzman, 61, has been on trial since November. He was extradited to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Other witnesses at the trial have also made accusations of high-level corruption. Jesus Zambada, another cartel member, testified in November he paid a multimillion dollar bribe to an aide of current Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005. The aide, Genaro Garcia Luna, denied the accusations to Reuters at the time, calling them “defamation.”

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drugs
mexico
enrique pena nieto
bribes
joaquin el chapo guzman


Iran could enrich uranium to 20% within four days, nation's atomic energy chief says

Abstract: GENEVA - Iran can enrich uranium up to 20 percent within four days, its atomic energy chief said on Tuesday, a comment apparently aimed at showing Tehran could quickly expand its enrichment program if its nuclear deal with world powers collapses. Iran’s 2015 accord with world powers caps the level to which it is able to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent purity, well below the 20 percent it was reaching before the deal, and the roughly 90 percent suitable for a nuclear weapon. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal last May, calling it flawed, and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Tehran refuses to renegotiate and has said the deal could fall apart unless European signatories preserve its economic benefits for the Islamic Republic against U.S. pressure. “If we want to come out of the nuclear deal and produce, within four days we could start our 20 percent,” Ali Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the semi-official Fars News Agency. “But we already have stockpiles of 20 percent, and the capability.” Salehi did not elaborate on his remark about stockpiles. Iran’s reserve of 20 percent enriched uranium was downblended, shipped abroad or turned into fuel plates for a research reactor after the nuclear deal was clinched. Salehi told Reuters in an interview last November that Iran could resume enriching uranium to 20 percent purity — seen as well above the level suitable for fueling civilian power plants — if the 2015 deal’s trade spin-offs do not pan out for Tehran. Iran is allowed under the deal to produce nuclear fuel under strict conditions that need to be approved by a working group set up by the signatories. Those conditions include ensuring that the fuel cannot be converted to uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges that enrich uranium.

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iran
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iran nuclear deal
donald trump
ali salehi
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Nuclear arms treaty faces collapse after failed Russia-U.S. talks

Abstract: GENEVA - The survival of a key nuclear arms control treaty was cast further in doubt Tuesday after the U.S. and Russia blamed each other for pushing the agreement to the brink of collapse. Senior diplomats from both countries met in Geneva amid widespread concern over the fate of the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which successfully put an end to a mini-arms race after it was signed in 1987. U.S. President Donald Trump said in October that his country would pull out of the deal unless Russia stops violating it. Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to develop nuclear missiles banned under the treaty if it is scrapped. “The meeting was disappointing as it is clear Russia continues to be in material breach of the treaty and did not come prepared to explain how it plans to return to full and verifiable compliance,” U.S. Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Andrea Thompson, said in a statement. “Our message was clear: Russia must destroy its noncompliant missile system,” she said. Thompson will be in Brussels on Wednesday, where she plans to brief NATO allies on the INF talks. Russia hosted the negotiations at its mission in Geneva and Moscow’s delegation was led by deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov. Ryabkov said that if the deal is ditched, “responsibility for this fully and completely rests with the American side,” according to quotes published by Russian news agencies after the talks. He added that said the parties had failed to agree on anything and Washington did not appear to be in the mood for more negotiations. “We are forced to acknowledge that there is no movement forward,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying. “We are ready for dialogue on the basis of equality, mutual respect, (and) without putting forward ultimatums.” Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would withdraw within 60 days from the Cold War treaty limiting mid-range nuclear arms if Russia does not dismantle missiles that the U.S. claims breach the deal, which include Russia’s 9M729 system, also known by the designation SSC-8. The INF was a bilateral treaty between the U.S. and the then Soviet Union, so it puts no restrictions on other major military actors like China. Pompeo has also said the U.S. was not prepared to cede this advantage to a rival and noted that American concerns about Russian compliance pre-date the Trump administration. Washington’s top diplomat has accused Russia of shrugging off dozens of warnings from senior U.S. officials over the past five years about the SSC-8. Ryabkov said Tuesday’s talks in Geneva centered on SSC-8 system but that U.S. demands regarding the missile were unacceptable. The landmark treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has described the INF as “arms control at its best” but warned last month that the collapse of the agreement appeared likely.

conflict
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vladimir putin
russia
nuclear weapons
donald trump


What next for Brexit? Three scenarios: Try again, no deal or a second referendum

Abstract: LONDON - What next? After British MPs rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal on Tuesday, leading to a no-confidence vote in the government, that is the question on everyone’s lips. Here are the three main scenarios facing the U.K. while the clock ticks down to March 29 — the day it is scheduled to depart the European Union after 46 years: Try again The British government and EU leaders say their agreement is the best compromise available, and despite her historic defeat, May said it remained the only option. Members of her Conservative Party say the deal keeps the U.K. too close to the EU; opposition parties say it fails to protect economic ties with the bloc. Both sides also hate a plan to keep open the Irish border, the so-called backstop, under which the U.K. could indefinitely follow European rules on trade. May has already sought concessions on the backstop from EU leaders, but they refused to alter the deal itself, and her critics were not convinced. On Tuesday, she warned there was no “alternative deal” on offer from the EU but she said she was open to discussing ideas with MPs that were “genuinely negotiable” and could “explore them with the European Union.” Attorney General Geoffrey Cox earlier told MPs that the Brexit deal “will have to return in much the same form and with much the same content.” There is nothing to stop the government from bringing back the same deal again and again to the House of Commons until either MPs accept it or seek to oust May, who faces a no-confidence vote called by the opposition Labour Party. It is far from certain that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn can muster the numbers to topple May and her ministers in Wednesday’s vote and likely force a national election, although he has capitalized on the government’s discomfort with Brexit by focusing his efforts on popular domestic policies such as re-nationalizing the U.K.’s notoriously rickety railways. In the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, Corbyn was vilified for giving the “remain” campaign only lip-service support. If there isn’t a general election, Labour says all options, including campaigning for a second referendum, remain on the table. If the no-confidence vote fails, the U.K. will essentially be in the same place as if the vote had happened four weeks ago — but now with a tighter timeline to ending or extending Article 50 notification, the trigger for exiting the EU. No deal This is billed as the doomsday scenario that threatens to trigger a recession in the U.K. and markedly slow the European Union’s economic growth. It is the default option if Parliament votes against the deal and there are no other solutions before March 29. May’s agreement was meant to keep trade rules between the world’s fifth-biggest economy and its largest export market almost unchanged for a transition period running to the end of 2020. A sudden shift to different standards would impact almost every economic sector — and possibly see the costs of everyday products in the U.K. rise as well as create disruption at logistical hubs such as ports. The government has conducted visible displays of its ramped-up no-deal preparations over the past few weeks. There is growing speculation in London and Brussels that she could seek to delay Brexit to avoid a no-deal scenario. As the pound fell and investors started to weigh a worst-case Brexit, analysts saw a strong prospect that the departure date would be extended and a low prospect of a disorderly Brexit. Second referendum EU supporters have been calling for another vote ever since the Leave campaign won by 52 to 48 percent in the 2016 referendum, and demands have stepped up in recent months. There is no law keeping the U.K. from doing it all over again, but many question whether this would be democratic. It also threatens to be just as divisive, with opinion polls showing the country is still split over the issue. May has warned that another vote “would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics.” The first step would be to extend the U.K.’s departure date, although EU diplomats warn this would only be for a few months.

eu
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brexit
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jeremy corbyn


Brazil's Bolsonaro decrees eased gun laws and woos weapons makers

Abstract: BRASILIA - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree loosening the country’s restrictive gun regulations, and hinted at further measures to arm law-abiding citizens to combat rampant crime. The decree, which does not require congressional approval, scraps the requirement that Brazilians need to prove their ‘effective need’ to own a firearm. Nevertheless numerous other restrictions remain, including the requirement that gun owners pass tests proving both their psychological aptitude and their capacity to handle a weapon. “This measure is for upstanding citizens to have peace at home,” said Bolsonaro, a former Army captain, at an event in Brasilia on Tuesday. He added that the decree ensures Brazilians’ “right of defense” and that further changes to the law depend on congressional approval. Brazil is one of the most violent countries in the world, with a murder rate of over 30 homicides per 100,000, compared with around 5 per 100,000 in the U.S. Much of Bolsonaro’s electoral appeal came from his tough line on law and order, including a promise to free up police officers to kill suspected criminals and allow Brazilians to arm themselves. A poll taken last month, however, showed that a majority of Brazilians oppose loosening the country’s gun laws. While it is legal to own a gun in Brazil, bureaucratic obstacles limit their registration and most weapons are obtained illegally. In 2018, 48,330 licenses for guns and ammunition were issued and 210,097 were renewed, according to federal police data. By contrast, 94.9 percent of the 119,484 firearms seized by the authorities in 2017 had not been registered with the federal police, data from the Brazilian Forum on Public Security think-tank showed. By itself, Bolsonaro’s decree is unlikely to help many more Brazilians purchase guns, not only due to the other stringent rules that will remain in effect, but also due to the high cost. Brazilian gunmaker Forjas Taurus SA dominates the local market and, without greater competition, some experts say legal firearms will continue to remain prohibitively expensive for most. But Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro’s Cabinet chief, said that the government is studying opening up the market for guns. “There have to be new factories, so that they bring jobs and investment to Brazil,” he said. While Tuesday’s decree addresses gun ownership, a bill before Congress would also ease restrictions on the right to carry weapons, he added. For the president, the decree is an opportunity to say he’s delivering on a high-profile campaign promise. A former paratrooper, Bolsonaro is a longtime gun enthusiast, famous for his signature gesture of imitating pistols with his hands. In his manifesto for government, the president set out his stance clearly. “Guns are tools, inert objects, that can be used to kill or to save lives. This depends on who uses them: good or bad people.” With relatively little to show for in his first two weeks in power, Tuesday’s executive decree will delight many of his supporters. But the policy is far from universally popular. A recent Datafolha survey found that 61 percent of Brazilians are opposed to liberalizing the country’s gun laws. “This is the worst decision that could be made in a country as violent as Brazil,” Rafael Alcadipani, associate professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said. “Research shows that the increased prevalence of firearms in a population always increases the rate of homicides and general crimes.”

guns
brazil
jair bolsonaro
weapons makers


U.K. press lambastes 'humiliated' and 'crushed' Theresa May after massive Brexit defeat

Abstract: LONDON - Prime Minister Theresa May was left “crushed” and “humiliated,” U.K. newspapers said Wednesday as they raked over the fallout from Parliament’s huge rejection of her EU divorce deal. Daily papers said May’s deal was sunk after the overwhelming vote against the agreement, struck between May’s government and Brussels, as she prepared to fight a no-confidence motion on Wednesday. The Daily Telegraph’s front page read “A complete humiliation,” following the 432 to 202 vote by lawmakers to reject the deal. Its editorial said May had misjudged parliament, and that the EU had failed to understand the “essential issues of sovereignty and freedom” behind the Brexit vote. “The government must regain the confidence of the house, rethink the agreement and go to the Europeans with a united front. Whether or not Mrs. May leads that effort is a decision upon which she will now have to think very hard.” The broadsheet’s parliamentary sketch writer Michael Deacon said May’s pre-vote plea to members of parliament “had all the brio of a mouldy gym sock.” “She sounded as winningly persuasive as a mother snapping at her children to eat up their cabbage or go to bed hungry.” “Brextinct” said The Sun tabloid’s front page. “May’s Brexit deal dead as a dodo,” said nation’s biggest-selling paper, with a mock-up picture of the PM as the extinct flightless bird. The Times columnist Matthew Parris said it was time for senior lawmakers to take over the Brexit process. “There exists no leadership in either the government or the opposition capable of taking us through this mess,” he wrote after the vote. “Theresa May isn’t any good; she doesn’t have a fiendish, secret strategy… she doesn’t know what to do. “Parliament must wrest control from a zombie prime minister, a zombie cabinet and a zombie opposition.” The Daily Mirror’s front page said: “No deal, no hope, no clue, no confidence.” The tabloid called her “the humiliated PM.” The Daily Mail said the defeat left May’s power “hanging by a thread,” calling it a “devastating result, which threatens to plunge the Brexit process into chaos.” Its headline described her as “Fighting for her life.” The Financial Times ran a headline reading: “May’s defeat spells trouble for the EU’s Brexit approach.” “Huge loss leaves PM in race against time,” the broadsheet said. Playing on the prime minister’s moniker, The Daily Express chose “Dismay” for their headline. “Now it’s time for MPs to do their duty and work with Theresa May for a deal that satisfies the 17.4m who voted for Brexit… Don’t fail us!” it said on its front page. The Scotsman’s front page headline simply said: “Crushed.” “May suffers historic defeat as Tories turn against her,” said The Guardian’s front page. “The PM leads a party that is divided and a country stockpiling food and medicines as if preparing for war. She needs to humbly reach out to her opponents and find a way to prevent Britain crashing out of the EU,” its editorial said. “The country now faces a situation without precedent in its constitutional history: how to reconcile the sovereignty of the people with the sovereignty of parliament.”


Defying Trump, U.S. Senate advances measure critical of easing Russia sanctions

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday to move ahead with a resolution disapproving of a Trump administration plan to ease sanctions on Russian companies tied to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, clearing the way for debate and a vote on the plan. The vote marked a rare break from President Donald Trump. Eleven of Trump’s fellow Republicans joined Democrats to vote 57-42 in favor of a motion to proceed to the resolution of disapproval. Republicans hold a slim 53-47 seat majority in the 100-member Senate. The Senate vote came shortly after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin came to the Capitol to urge Republicans to oppose the Democratic-backed resolution of disapproval. But several said they wanted more time to consider the move to ease sanctions on Russia before making a final decision on its fate. The Treasury Department said in December it would lift sanctions imposed in April on the core businesses of Deripaska, including aluminum giant Rusal, its parent, En+, and power firm EuroSibEnergo, watering down the toughest penalties imposed on Russian entities since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Deripaska himself would remain subject to U.S. sanctions. To take effect and block the plan to lift the sanctions, the resolution of disapproval would need to pass the Republican-led Senate as well as the House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a majority of seats. It would also have to survive a potential veto by Trump. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, introduced a similar resolution of disapproval in that chamber on Tuesday.

treasury
gop
u.s. senate
democrats
russia sanctions
donald trump
steve mnuchin
oleg deripaska


Theresa May faces no-confidence vote after Brexit plan crushed in parliament by historic margin

Abstract: LONDON - U.K. lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s divorce deal with the European Union on Tuesday, plunging the Brexit process into chaos and triggering a no-confidence vote that could topple her government. The defeat was widely expected, but the scale of the House of Commons’ vote — 432 votes against the government and 202 in support — was devastating for May’s fragile leadership. It followed more than two years of political upheaval in which May has staked her political reputation on getting a Brexit deal and was the biggest defeat for a government in the House of Commons in modern history. Moments after the result was announced — with Speaker John Bercow bellowing “the noes have it” to a packed Commons chamber — May said it was only right to test whether the government still had lawmakers’ support to carry on. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn quickly obliged, saying May’s government had lost the confidence of Parliament. Lawmakers will vote Wednesday on his motion of no-confidence. If the government loses, it will have 14 days to overturn the result or face a national election. Although May lacks an overall majority in Parliament, she looks likely to survive the vote unless lawmakers from her Conservative party rebel. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May’s government, said it would support her. “The House has spoken and the government will listen,” May said after the vote, which leaves her Brexit plan on life support just 10 weeks before the country is due to leave the EU on March 29. May promised to consult lawmakers on future moves, but gave little indication of what she plans to do next. Parliament has given the government until Monday to come up with a new proposal. She faces a stark choice: Steer the country toward an abrupt “no-deal” break with the EU or try to nudge it toward a softer departure. Meanwhile, lawmakers from both government and opposition parties are trying to wrest control of the Brexit process from a paralyzed government, so that lawmakers by majority vote can specify a new plan for the U.K.’s EU exit. But with no clear majority in Parliament for any single alternate course, there is a growing chance that the U.K. may seek to postpone its departure date while politicians work on a new plan — or even hand the decision back to voters in a new referendum on EU membership. “If you can’t resolve the impasse here in Westminster, than you have to refer it back to the people,” said Labour Party lawmaker Chuka Umunna, who supports a second referendum. May, who had postponed a vote on the deal in December to avoid certain defeat, had implored lawmakers to back her deal and deliver on the voters’ decision in 2016 to leave the EU. But the deal was doomed by deep opposition from both sides of the divide over U.K.’s place in the bloc. Pro-Brexit lawmakers say the deal will leave the U.K. bound indefinitely to EU rules, while pro-EU politicians favor an even closer economic relationship with Europe. The most contentious section of the deal was an insurance policy known as the “backstop” designed to prevent the reintroduction of border controls between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Assurances from EU leaders that the backstop is intended as a temporary measure of last resort completely failed to win over many British skeptics. Two and a half years after the referendum, the U.K. remains divided over how, and whether, to leave the EU. As lawmakers debated in the chamber, there was a cacophony of chants, drums and music from rival bands of pro-EU and pro-Brexit protesters outside. One group waved blue-and-yellow EU flags, the other brandished “Leave Means Leave” placards. Inside, the government and opposition parties ordered lawmakers to cancel all other plans to be on hand for the crucial vote. Labour legislator Tulip Siddiq delayed the scheduled cesarean birth of her son so she could attend, arriving in a wheelchair Some Conservatives want May to seek further talks with EU leaders on changes before bringing a tweaked version of the bill back to Parliament, even though EU officials insist the 585-page withdrawal agreement cannot be renegotiated. Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said May was unlikely to get changes to her deal from that could “placate her Brexiteers.” “Or, she reaches out to Labour and goes for a softer Brexit than most Brexiteers would contemplate” — but which the EU might accept, Bale said. Frustrated EU leaders called on May to make her intentions clear on the future of Brexit. “Now, it is time for the U.K. to tell us the next steps,” said Michel Barnier, the bloc’s chief negotiator. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker — who returned to Brussels late Tuesday to deal with fallout from the vote — said the rejection of May’s deal had increased “the risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom.” “Time is almost up,” he said. Economists warn that an abrupt break from the EU could batter the British economy and bring chaotic scenes at borders, ports and airports. Business groups expressed alarm at the prospect of a “no-deal” exit. “Every business will feel no-deal is hurtling closer,” said Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. “A new plan is needed immediately.” European Council President Donald Tusk highlighted the quagmire the U.K. had sunk into, and hinted that the best solution might be for the U.K. not to leave. “If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?” he tweeted.

eu
u.k. parliament
labour
brexit
theresa may
jeremy corbyn


EU expresses horror at Brexit vote but refuses to reopen deal

Abstract: BRUSSELS - The European Union said it was horrified by the massive scale of the U.K. Parliament defeat of the Brexit deal agreed with Prime Minister Theresa May but said there was no option to renegotiate. Diplomats said they were stunned by the extent of the loss. As they tried on Tuesday night to plot the EU response, they said they think there’s little more they can do to help May and fear that the U.K. tumbling out without agreement in March has now become a real prospect. Despite only 10 weeks to go until the U.K.’s scheduled departure, officials in Brussels ruled out the prospect of an extraordinary summit of the 27 EU leaders any time soon. They said there’s little to discuss if lawmakers in the U.K. can’t decide what they want. European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker told the U.K: “Time is almost up.” “We have shown creativity and flexibility throughout,” Juncker said. The deal is the “only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom.” Previously, EU officials had suggested that a much smaller defeat of the Brexit deal, of around 60 votes, would give them something to work with and that they had some concessions up their sleeves to get it over the line. But the loss by 230 is greater even than many feared, leading to a sense of confusion about what to do for the best. They will restart talks with May but will resist going back on what’s already been agreed. Some on the EU side can barely conceal their anger that May has been unable to sell a deal to lawmakers after more than 18 months of negotiation with Brussels. “The EU-27 will remain united and responsible as we have been throughout the entire process and will seek to reduce the damage caused by Brexit,” Preben Aamaan, spokesman for EU President Donald Tusk said. “We will continue our preparations for all outcomes, including a no-deal scenario.” Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said it’s “up to the British to assume the consequence of their choice,” while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was a little more upbeat: “Despite this setback, it does not mean we are in a no-deal situation,” he said on Twitter. All agree that it’s for the U.K. government to decide on the next steps. It’s a “sad day for Europe,” German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.


Rep. Liz Cheney suggests GOP colleague Steve King 'find another line of work' after racist remarks

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Republicans are dialing up the pressure on Rep. Steve King, with one GOP leader suggesting Tuesday that the nine-term Iowan leave Congress after the latest in a string of what she called his “racist” comments. “I’d like to see him find another line of work,” Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-highest Republican in the House, told reporters. It was the most explicit call from a senior Republican for King to leave and the latest GOP effort to inspire him to quit over his quote in The New York Times last week questioning how white nationalism and white supremacy became offensive terms. Republicans looking to avoid worsening the party’s relationship with blacks and minorities quickly condemned King’s remarks as racist. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., wrote an op-ed saying that any GOP silence in the face of King’s remarks would be a blemish on the party and the nation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky condemned King. And tellingly, Republicans refused to say whether they support King’s re-election effort. On Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that King would not be given any committee assignments, the prized seats at the policy table where lawmakers represent their constituents. King served on the Agriculture, Small Business and Judiciary committees in the last Congress, and he chaired Judiciary’s subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. King vowed to “continue to point out the truth and work with all the vigor that I have to represent 4th District Iowans for at least the next two years.” House Democrats moved to formally punish King. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the third-ranking House Democrat and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, introduced a formal resolution of disapproval late Monday. Addressing what he called “a tale of two kings,” Clyburn said the Iowa lawmaker’s remarks were offensive because they embraced evil concepts. Invoking the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — whose 90th birthday is Tuesday — Clyburn called on colleagues from both parties “to join me in breaking the deafening silence and letting our resounding condemnation be heard.” But other Democrats were pushing for a stronger punishment, censure. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said he will not vote for Clyburn’s resolution because it’s not strong enough. Rush said his own censure resolution would announce to the world that Congress has no home for “repugnant and racist behavior.” “As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated,” Rush said Monday in a statement that also called on Republicans to strip King of his committee memberships until he apologizes. A third Democrat, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, introduced a separate censure resolution against King. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican, we all have a responsibility to call out Rep. King’s hateful and racist comments,” Ryan said, noting that the white supremacy comments were not the first time King has made headlines for inappropriate language. They all returned to a long string of King’s remarks that have drawn rebukes. The text of Rush’s censure resolution lists more than a dozen examples of King’s remarks, beginning with comments in 2006 in which he compared immigrants to livestock and ending with his lamentation in the New York Times last week that white supremacy and white nationalism have become offensive terms. McConnell, in his statement, said he has “no tolerance” for the positions offered by King, and said “those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. Rep. King’s statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesn’t understand why ‘white supremacy’ is offensive, he should find another line of work.” One Republican did not join the chorus of criticism. Asked about King’s remarks Monday, President Donald Trump said, “I haven’t been following it.” King on Friday suggested he’s been misunderstood. He said on the House floor that the interview with the Times was in part a “discussion of other terms that have been used, almost always unjustly labeling otherwise innocent people. The word racist, the word Nazi, the word fascist, the phrase white nationalists, the phrase white supremacists.” King said he was only wondering aloud: “How did that offensive language get injected into our political dialogue? Who does that, how does it get done, how do they get by with laying labels like this on people?” King’s position in the GOP had been imperiled even before his remarks about white supremacy. Shortly before the 2018 midterm elections, in which King was running, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, then the head of the GOP campaign committee, issued an extraordinary public denunciation of him. King has already drawn a primary challenger for the 2020 election: Randy Feenstra, a GOP state senator. Feenstar said Monday, “Sadly, today, the voters and conservative values of our district have lost their seat at the table because of Congressman King’s caustic behavior.”

gop
racism
u.s. congress
mitch mcconnell
white supremacy
kevin mccarthy
steve king
liz cheney


Saudi teen given asylum in Canada says she wants to work for freedom for women

Abstract: TORONTO - A Saudi teen whose flight from her allegedly abusive family captured global attention said Tuesday she wants to work in support of freedom for women around the world for years to come. Rahaf Mohammed also has quickly embraced life in Canada, saying that when she learned she would be granted asylum, “the stress that I felt over the last week melted away.” The 18-year-old also quickly shed a part of her Saudi past, dropping use of the name of the Alqunun family that disowned her. In a public appearance organized by the U.N. refugee agency and an immigrant-aid group, she said through an interpreter that first priority is to learn English. The young woman arrived in Canada over the weekend after a harrowing flight from her homeland. She fled what she said was physical and psychological abuse from her family in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, allegations of which the family denies. She flew to Bangkok while on a trip to Kuwait. Once in Thailand, she barricaded herself in an airport hotel to avoid deportation and tweeted about her situation, gaining international sympathy and prompting the U.N. refugee agency to seek a home for her. Her emotional social media posts ignited a #SaveRahaf movement — and prompted quick action. She was granted refugee status and was welcomed by Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland after landing in Toronto on Saturday. “Today and for years to come, I will work in support of freedom for women around the world,” she said. “The same freedom I experienced on the first day I arrived in Canada.” Her situation has highlighted the issue of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, where several women fleeing abuse by their families have been denied asylum abroad and returned home in recent years. “I am one of the lucky ones,” she said. “I know that there are unlucky women who disappeared after trying to escape or who could not do anything to change their reality.” She said she wants to be independent, travel and make her own decisions on education, on a career and who she will marry. “I had no say in any of this. Today I can proudly say that I am capable of making all those decisions,” she said. She said that women in Saudi Arabia “can’t be independent and they need the approval of their male guardian for everything. Any woman who thinks of escaping, or escapes, will be at risk of persecution.” She also said she is declining any more media interviews and declined to take questions. “I would like to start living a normal private life, just like any other young woman living in Canada,” she said. Mario Calla, executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services, a government-funded organization that is helping her settle in temporary housing and apply for a health card, said a security guard has been hired because of threats against her on social media. “We make sure she is never alone,” he said. He said she has felt unsafe at times. “She sees these threats,” he said. “She has left Islam and she basically has broken away from her family, and that scares her. Her emotions go back and forth.” Calla said the group would eventually like to place her with a family so she’s not living alone. He called her a strong-willed individual, noting that’s how she got here. His organization gets about two urgent refugee protection cases a year. “What’s new about this is the role of social media that it played in getting the attention she received,” he said. In her first weekend in Canada the young woman immediately got winter clothes and phone service. Calla said she has completed high school and had expressed interest in taking civil engineering in university. “But maybe there’s a future in politics for her,” Calla said. “She certainly has been handling all this pressure very well.”

saudi arabia
rights
u.n .
women
canada
rahaf mohammed


Egypt university overturns expulsion of student over hug

Abstract: CAIRO - An Egyptian university has overturned its decision to expel a male student over hugging his female friend on campus, in an incident that sparked controversy in the conservative country. The young man appeared in a video carrying a bouquet of flowers kneeling before a woman and then hugging her, in what was meant to be a marriage proposal. The footage was widely circulated online earlier this month and initially prompted the expulsion of both students from their respective universities. But late Tuesday the Mansoura University in northern Egypt, where the video was shot, reversed its decision to exclude the male student for two years. The student’s appeal against the expulsion included “his apology for the act committed, a pledge to not repeat it and to commit to the university’s values and ethics,” a university statement said. It cited the student’s young age, concern for his future and his unfamiliarity with the university’s rules, deciding instead to ban him from taking the semester’s exams. On Sunday he was interviewed by telephone by a prominent talk show host on channel MBC Masr, and said that he had brought the flowers to propose to the woman. “We were supposed to be engaged but after what happened her parents are refusing this completely,” said the young man, a first year law student who was identified only by his first name Mahmoud. A day later, Al-Azhar university in Cairo scrapped the expulsion decision against the young woman who appeared in the video. The move followed the intervention in her favor of Egypt’s top Muslim cleric, Ahmed al-Tayeb, who is the institution’s grand imam. Issuing a lesser penalty, the university said the female student would be prevented for taking the first half of her exams. Al-Azhar is the most prestigious seat of Sunni Islamic learning in Egypt, a predominantly Muslim country which is largely a conservative society. Al-Azhar is touted as standing for Islamic moderation, but critics often accuse the institution of failing to modernize its teachings in order to counter extremism.

religion
human rights
islam
egypt
education
university
expulsion
hug


U.S. weighs new ways to detect and track enemy missiles in move that would expand defenses for Asian allies

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is considering ways to expand U.S. homeland and overseas defenses against a potential missile attack, possibly adding a layer of satellites in space to detect and track hostile targets in a move that would likely provide additional reassurances for American allies such as Japan. Details on how far the administration intends to press this in a largely supportive Congress are expected to be revealed when the Pentagon releases results of a missile defense review as early as Thursday. The release was postponed last year for unexplained reasons, though it came as President Donald Trump was trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. A review might have complicated the talks. The Trump approach is expected to include emphasis on stopping missiles either before they are launched or in the first few minutes of flight when their booster engines are still burning. Congress already has directed the Pentagon to push harder on this “boost-phase” approach, which might include the use of drones armed with lasers. Any expansion of the scope and cost of missile defenses would compete with other defense priorities, including the billions of extra dollars the Trump administration has committed to spending on a new generation of nuclear weapons. An expansion also would have important implications for American diplomacy, given long-standing Russian hostility to even the most rudimentary U.S. missile defenses and China’s worry that longer-range U.S. missile defenses in Asia could undermine Chinese national security. Senior administration officials have signaled their interest in developing and deploying more effective means of detecting and tracking missiles with a constellation of satellites in space that can, for example, use advanced sensors to follow the full path of a hostile missile so that an anti-missile weapon can be directed into its flight path. Space-based sensor networks would allow the U.S. to deal with more sophisticated threats such as hypersonic missiles. “I think that makes a lot of sense,” said Frank Rose, a former Pentagon and State Department official and now a senior fellow for security and strategy at the Brookings Institution. “This could make a real improvement in our missile defense capabilities.” Current U.S. missile defense weapons are based on land and aboard ships. Republican presidents starting with Ronald Reagan, who proposed a “Star Wars” system of anti-missile weapons in space, have been more enthusiastic about missile defense than Democrats. In recent years, however, both parties have argued that better defenses are needed, if only against emerging nuclear powers such as North Korea. Trump’s detailed views on this are not well-known. The national security strategy he unveiled in December 2017 called “enhanced” missile defense a priority, but it also said it was not intended to disrupt  strategic relationships with Russia or China, whose missile arsenals the U.S. sees as the greatest potential threat. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said last year that a space-based layer of missile-tracking sensors would not mark a big shift in American policy or as a security threat to others like Russia or China. “It watches, it detects what others are doing. I don’t regard it as a provocative act to observe the missile flights of missiles that are potentially threatening to the United States,” Rood said in September. “I don’t think having a sensor capability is a sea change for the United States,” he added, without stating directly that the Trump administration will pursue this. Such a system is different than the more provocative idea of putting missile interceptors aboard satellites in space, which is not expected to be part of the Trump strategy. Congress has ordered the Pentagon to study it and some senior Pentagon officials have said recently that space-based interceptors are feasible and affordable. However, Rood in September strongly suggested that the Pentagon is not ready to move ahead with that. “Those are bridges yet to be crossed, some time away,” he said. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said he expects the missile defense review to endorse an expanded role for missile defenses to counter certain Russian and Chinese missiles, especially those that could threaten U.S. allies in Asia and Europe. “This is likely to stimulate them to accelerate offensive missile programs, like hypersonic vehicles, that can evade our missile defense,” Kimball said.

china
north korea
russia
military
weapons
u.s.-japan relations
donald trump


Saudi aide fired over Jamal Khashoggi murder still wields influence, say sources

Abstract: LONDON/WASHINGTON - A Saudi royal adviser fired over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi continues to wield influence in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s inner circle, according to Western, Arab and Saudi sources with links to the royal court. Saud al-Qahtani was dismissed as a top aide to the de facto Saudi leader in late October, after overseeing the operation to kill Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by giving orders via Skype, according to regional intelligence sources. A senior Saudi official at the time called his removal “a political decision … based on dereliction of duty and participation in the sequence of events” that led to the murder. Weeks later, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Qahtani for his role. But six sources said that Qahtani remains active on behalf of the royal court. Two of them said he has kept in touch with the crown prince while three others said he has continued to instruct a small group of Saudi journalists on what to write about the kingdom’s policies. As head of the royal court’s media center until his dismissal, Qahtani ran an electronic media army tasked with protecting Saudi Arabia’s image, dictating the official line on issues from a dispute with Qatar to security and human rights. The apparent impunity of Qahtani, seen as the crown prince’s right-hand man, risks undermining Saudi promises to hold those responsible to account, the sources say. The U.S. Senate last month backed a resolution blaming the crown prince, known as MBS, for the killing and insisted Riyadh fully investigate. A Saudi official denied Qahtani was still playing a role inside the royal court, saying he has not conducted any work since his dismissal and that he remains under investigation and banned from travel. The official referred to comments by the public prosecutor’s spokesman last year that 21 Saudis were taken into custody in relation to the Khashoggi case, 11 of whom have been indicted and referred to trial. Reuters has been unable to reach Qahtani since he was fired. At the heart of the crown prince’s inner circle, Qahtani controlled access to MBS and would often speak on his behalf before he was dismissed, government insiders have said. No official replacement has yet been announced. Qahtani has continued to make repeated appearances at the royal court, although it was not clear in what capacity, five of the sources said. All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. “He is still around, free and in favor. The crown prince is still holding on to him and doesn’t seem to be willing to sacrifice him,” one of the foreign sources said. MBS himself has told visitors that Qahtani is still an adviser while assuring them that some responsibilities have been taken from him, according to a source familiar with the discussion between the crown prince and the visitors. The source did not elaborate. Qahtani has also continued to dictate the royal court’s official line to columnists and top editors he considers able to influence public opinion, according to three of the sources, despite leaving a WhatsApp group he ran for that purpose. Instead he has messaged individuals directly, instructing them on what or what not to write, these sources said. Qahtani’s involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, which intelligence sources have said included giving orders over Skype to the team inside the consulate, has fueled speculation that MBS ordered the hit. Saudi officials have said the crown prince knew nothing of the killing. The public prosecutor has said Qahtani briefed a team of Saudi operatives ahead of a mission to repatriate Khashoggi. Saudi officials have refused to disclose whether Qahtani was among those arrested. The Saudi public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects detained over Khashoggi’s killing and a first court hearing was held this month. The suspects were not named and Reuters could not determine whether Qahtani was present at the hearing. A source familiar with U.S. government agencies’ reporting and analyses said they believe Qahtani has been instructed to lie low for a while but think it is unlikely that MBS would ditch Qahtani. Some Western allies had been concerned, even before Khashoggi’s killing, by the power Qahtani wielded within the royal court and have privately urged Riyadh to replace him with more seasoned advisers, according to Western diplomats in Riyadh. Qahtani stopped using Twitter, a platform he regularly used to attack the kingdom’s critics, on Oct. 23 and changed the biography on his profile to “personal account.” But Saudi activists living abroad still see his influence on Saudi media and in the Twitter attacks they say they face, accusing them of being disloyal to MBS or unpatriotic for not supporting his policies. “Nothing has changed. It seems to have the same line, the same offensive language. His fingerprints are all over it still,” said Hala al-Dosari, a Saudi scholar and activist based in the United States.

saudi arabia
crown prince mohammed bin salman
jamal khashoggi


U.S. and South Korea considering carrots for Kim to spur progress in nuclear talks

Abstract: SEOUL/WASHINGTON/BEIJING - The U.S. and South Korea are discussing “corresponding measures” to reward North Korea’s steps toward denuclearization, South Korea’s foreign minister said, as President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un prepare for a possible second summit. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a news conference Wednesday in Seoul that the allies were reviewing various packages of incentives that Washington could bring to the table in the meeting. While Kang provided few details other than to say restarting stalled business projects were being discussed, the term can cover everything from sanctions relief to moves to formalize the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. “Between South Korea and the United States, we are closely consulting what kinds of denuclearization measures should be followed and what the United States and the international community can do as corresponding measures,” she said at a New Year’s news conference. She said she expected nuclear talks to pick up speed. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying confirmed Wednesday that Kim Yong Chol — a senior North Korean official who last year delivered Kim Jong Un’s letter to Trump before their first summit — will transit through Beijing on Thursday en route to another location. CNN reported earlier that Kim Yong Chol was due to meet U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Washington this week. Negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea have sputtered since Trump and Kim Jong Un signed an agreement during their first meeting in June to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” without defining the phrase or setting any deadlines. North Korea argues the deal implied a step-by-step approach, where each of its actions are met by U.S. responses, while Trump administration officials assert that Kim Jong Un accepted his country’s “final, fully verified denuclearization.” Kim Jong Un warned in his New Year’s address this month that he could be forced to take a “new path” in talks if Trump didn’t relax sanctions pressure. He pressed for U.S. concessions to reward his decisions last year to halt weapons tests and dismantle some testing facilities, without offering additional steps. “If the United States takes a credible action in response to our proactive and preemptive efforts and responds to the corresponding measures, the relationship between the two countries will move forward at a good and rapid pace through the process of taking more certain and innovative steps,” Kim Jong Un said on Jan. 1. While South Korea wasn’t independently considering resuming cooperation projects at a North Korean mountain resort or the joint factory park in the North, Kang said such moves were part of the “various combination of corresponding measures” being discussed. “Details of the results will be generated during the negotiations between North Korea and the United States,” she said. “The North could demand the opening of a liaison office as part of steps to normalize diplomatic ties, a halt of joint military exercises with the South and a resumption of the business and tour ventures,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “For Washington, it would be critical to secure the North’s agreement to collect samples, not just let in experts, which is key to inspection.” Separately, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, who handles nuclear weapons issues and negotiations with the United States, arrived at Beijing’s airport Tuesday on a flight from Pyongyang. She told reporters that she would be attending an “international conference in Sweden,” but speculation is rife that Choe will interact with the U.S. side in Sweden or she will change her destination and visit the United States with Kim Yong Chol. The focus is on whether Choe and Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative to North Korea, will hold working-level talks to discuss concrete steps toward denuclearization, diplomatic sources in Beijing said. Pompeo, who made several trips to Pyongyang last year, had planned to meet Kim Yong Chol in November in New York, but the talks were called off at the last minute.

u.s .
north korea
kim jong un
nuclear weapons
south korea
north korea nuclear crisis
donald trump
kim-trump summit


Pentagon report fuels worries of Chinese attack on Taiwan

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Amid increasing tensions with Beijing, the Pentagon on Tuesday released a new report that lays out U.S. concerns about China’s growing military might, underscoring worries about a possible attack against Taiwan. Speaking to reporters, a senior defense intelligence official said the key concern is that as China upgrades its military equipment and technology and reforms how it trains and develops troops, it becomes more confident in its ability to wage a regional conflict. And Beijing’s leaders have made it clear that reasserting sovereignty over Taiwan is a top priority. The official added, however, that although China could easily fire missiles at Taiwan, it doesn’t yet have the military capability to successfully invade the self-governing island, which split from mainland China amid civil war in 1949. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to provide more detail on intelligence findings in the report, which was written by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Its release comes just a week after Chinese President Xi Jinping called on his People’s Liberation Army to better prepare for combat. China has warned the U.S. against further upgrading military ties with Taiwan and has threatened to use force against the island to assert its claim of sovereignty. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has taken incremental moves to bolster ties with the island, including renewed arms sales and upgraded contacts between officials. The report also notes that the Chinese military has begun “to emphasize a more offensive version” of its historical strategic concept of “active defense,” which takes advantage of longer-range, precision-guided munitions — primarily ballistic and cruise missiles — to keep a potential enemy as far as possible from the country’s economically fast-developing coastal areas by fighting a “noncontact,” short, sharp conflict modeled after the Persian Gulf War. “The strategy is rooted in the concept that once Beijing has determined that an adversary has damaged or intends to damage China’s interests at the strategic level, Beijing will be justified in responding “defensively” at the operational or tactical level, even if the adversary has not yet conducted offensive military operations,” the report said. Beijing’s approach to its dispute with Tokyo over the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which are also claimed by China, where they are known as the Diaoyus, partially illustrates this concept, it noted. “China has employed both military and law enforcement assets proactively to challenge Japan’s administration of the islands since Beijing determined that Japan’s purchase of the islands from a private owner in 2012 constituted a serious infringement on China’s sovereignty claims,” the report said. “Although the PLA has not yet carried out kinetic strikes on Japanese forces around the islands, China’s active defense concept could potentially justify such attacks if Beijing perceived Japan to have further escalated the dispute.” While Sino-Japanese ties have warmed over the past year, U.S.-China tensions have become increasingly frayed on the military and economic fronts. Trump imposed tariff increases of up to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese imports over complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology. Xi responded by imposing penalties on $110 billion of American goods. And last year the Pentagon disinvited China to a major, multinational Pacific exercise, citing Beijing’s militarization of man-made islands in the South China Sea. The ongoing rise of China, in fact, has triggered greater U.S. military attention on the Indo-Pacific region over the last several years. Last year’s release of the U.S. National Defense Strategy emphasized the importance of great power competition with Russia and China, with it asserting that China’s rapidly expanding military and Russia’s increasing aggression are threatening America’s military advantage around the world. Just after taking over as the acting defense secretary, Pat Shanahan told his military service leaders on Jan. 2 that their focus should be “China, China, China.” The DIA report talks broadly about the steps China is taking to modernize its military and expand its operations around the globe. The worry, said the defense intelligence official, is that China will reach the point where leaders will decide that using military force for a regional conflict such as Taiwan is more imminent. “Beijing’s longstanding interest to eventually compel Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland and deter any attempt by Taiwan to declare independence has served as the primary driver for China’s military modernization,” the report says. “Beijing’s anticipation that foreign forces would intervene in a Taiwan scenario led the PLA to develop a range of systems to deter and deny foreign regional force projection.” Over time, the report said, the PLA is “likely to grow even more technologically advanced, with equipment comparable to that of other modern militaries.” That would include advanced fighter aircraft, ships, missile systems, and space and cyberspace capabilities. Cyberthreats from China have long been a major U.S. concern, stretching from massive data breaches and the theft of trade secrets to Beijing’s campaign to improve its ability to conduct cyberattacks. The U.S. official said China has been working very hard on developing ways to combine cyberattack capabilities with other kinetic weapons that can be used in combat. Still, the official said Beijing will face a significant challenge as it tries to bring generational change to its military. Until now, China has mainly done tightly controlled regional operations and some counterpiracy missions. It will be more difficult, the official said, to create a joint force capable of conducting large, complex combat operations far abroad.

china
u.s .
taiwan
military
senkakus
weapons
disputed islands


U.S. and British navies conduct first joint military exercises in disputed South China Sea

Abstract: U.S. and British warships have sailed together in the disputed South China Sea for the first time, in exercises likely to stoke anger in Beijing. The guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell and Royal Navy frigate HMS Argyll conducted the operations in the strategic waterway over a period of six days from Friday through Wednesday, the The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said in a statement. The statement said the warships “conducted communication drills, division tactics, and a personnel exchange designed to address common maritime security priorities, enhance interoperability, and develop relationships that will benefit both navies for many years to come.” The joint exercises in the waters — the first since China built military bases there — come as the British Navy seeks to play a bigger role in the region and has dispatched the Argyll on a tour of Asia. “We do not have any records in recent history of operations together with the U.K. specifically in South China Sea,” U.S. 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. Joe Keiley told The Japan Times. Beijing has constructed a series of military outposts throughout the waterway, which includes vital sea lanes through which about $3 trillion in global trade passes each year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims in the waters, where the U.S., Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies also routinely operate. China says its facilities in the waters are for defensive purposes, but some experts say this is part of a concerted bid to cement de facto control of the waters. Cmdr. Toby Shaughnessy, the Argyll’s commanding officer, touted the operation as “contributing to promoting regional security and prosperity.” Meanwhile, the Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture-based McCampbell’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Allison Christy, praised the joint exercises as “a rare opportunity” to work with the Royal Navy. “Professional engagement with our British counterparts allows us the opportunity to build upon our existing strong relationships and learn from each other,” she said. The move comes on the heels of a trilateral anti-submarine warfare exercise between the U.S. Navy, Royal Navy and the Maritime Self Defense Force on Dec. 21-22 and after another British warship, the HMS Albion amphibious assault ship, conducted a so-called freedom of navigation operation near the contested Paracel island chain claimed by China in the South China Sea last August. Beijing blasted London over that operation — the first in which Britain had directly confronted China over its claims in the waters, accusing it of engaging in “provocation.” Washington — which has led the charge in challenging what it says are excessive maritime claims in the waters — has long urged boosted participation in such operations. Earlier this month, the McCampbell passed within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of the same island chain in the U.S. Navy’s latest FONOP. Just a day after that operation, Chinese state-run media announced that Beijing’s so-called carrier killer anti-ship missile had been deployed to the country’s northwest. While the actual deployment date of the DF-26 ballistic missile, which reportedly has a range of 3,000-4,000 km, was not mentioned, the report alluded to the U.S. operation, quoting an unidentified expert as noting that it served as “a good reminder that China is capable of safeguarding its territory.” “Even when launched from deeper inland areas of China, the DF-26 has a range far-reaching enough to cover the South China Sea,” the expert added.

china
u.s .
vietnam
philippines
military
u.k .
disputed islands
south china sea
south china sea ruling


Chinese dissidents' stay in Taiwan airport limbo now tops 100 days

Abstract: TAIPEI - Chinese dissident Liu Xinglian marked his 64th birthday on Wednesday at Taiwan’s Taoyuan airport, one of two refugees who have been trapped in limbo there for more than 100 days, hoping for asylum overseas. Their case has parallels with that of Rahaf Mohammed, the Saudi teen who was given sanctuary in Canada after she sensationally deployed social media to shame Thai authorities against forcibly returning her to her family. But the Chinese asylum-seekers have received little international attention or solidarity. Like Mohammed, Liu and his friend Yan Kefen, 44, have applied for asylum in Canada and posted updates on social media from the airport highlighting their plight. “Inside the airport we can’t breathe fresh air and there’s no sunlight,” Liu said by phone from the fluorescent-lit fourth-floor room in transit where the pair have spent much of the last three months, subsisting on a diet of boxed meals provided by airlines. “That can’t be too healthy right?” he fretted. Liu and Yan are hostage to Taiwan’s unusual international status and its domestic politics. The self-ruled island is not recognized by most nations and has no United Nations representation, meaning the U.N.’s refugee agency does not operate there. And while Taiwan’s current polity was founded by people fleeing China’s civil war, it does not have local laws to protect refugees. In recent decades, governments have been loathe to allow in those fleeing the authoritarian mainland, fearful of angering Beijing or encouraging a deluge. President Tsai Ing-wen’s government — which takes a more skeptical view of Beijing and vocally pushes its human rights credentials — has so far made no moves to deport Liu and Yan. As a result, they are stuck — blocked from entering Taiwan yet unable to leave the transit area. The pair never intended to end up in Taiwan. Both fell foul of China’s authorities for political activism and fled to Thailand, Yan arriving in 2015, Liu in 2017. Bangkok does not recognize asylum applications and outsources the determination of refugee status to the UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, which tries to resettle legitimate claimants in a third country. But the waiting list is notoriously long. Both Yan and Liu received refugee status from the UNHCR — they sent AFP copies of their documentation — and were happy to remain in Thailand while they sought asylum. But then Thai police started paying them frequent visits. “I felt my life was in danger in Bangkok,” Yan said. “I was also afraid Thai police would deport me back to China.” They had reason to worry. Thailand has moved closer to Beijing since generals seized power in 2014, showing a willingness to forcibly return Chinese dissidents. More than 100 Uighurs and a slew of activists, some of whom had been granted asylum in Canada, have been sent back during the last five years. Bookseller Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen, disappeared from the resort town of Pattaya and resurfaced on Chinese state TV making a “confession.” Liu and Yan decided to make a run for it, landing in Taipei on Sept. 27. “We just wanted to get out of Thailand when we boarded that plane,” Yan, who also uses the name Yan Bojun, recalled. “We did not have any plans except asking for refuge during our stopover.” Liu and Yan do not currently fear imminent deportation and say they have been treated well by Taiwanese officials. “We don’t want to create trouble for Taiwan, but we need to go on to Facebook and Twitter so that people will not forget us,” Yan explained. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council — the office that deals with the Chinese mainland — said it recognized “our country’s mechanism for dealing with refugee claimants is not yet adequate.” But it added that it and other government agencies were committed to “upholding human rights and also the safety of these two persons.” Canada’s consulate in Hong Kong declined to comment citing privacy rules. Back at Taoyuan airport, all Yan and Liu can do is wait. “I don’t know how much longer I have to stay at this airport,” Yan said. “I can only hope I can leave before the Chinese New Year. If I can’t, I can’t. There’s nothing I can do.”


Five hurt as car runs onto sidewalk near Tokyo's Shinjuku Station; driver says he choked on tea

Abstract: A car driven by a 79-year-old man ran onto the sidewalk near JR Shinjuku Station in Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon, hitting and injuring five pedestrians, police said. The driver was quoted by the police as saying, “I had already crashed the car before I realized it.” He told them that he was choking after drinking tea. Two of the five pedestrians — a man in his 80s and a woman in her 20s — sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries. The driver and his 76-year-old wife who was with him in the car were also slightly injured, the police said. The incident occurred around 1:30 p.m. in a busy shopping district about 100 meters east of JR Shinjuku Station in central Tokyo. “I heard a loud bang and rushed out to the street. There were people lying about, with some looking unconscious and bleeding,” said a 21-year-old worker at a nearby sports store.


Japan plans further land reclamation work at Henoko site of new U.S. base in Okinawa from March

Abstract: The central government plans to start soil placement for further reclamation work in an area off the Henoko coastal district in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, in March, sources with knowledge of the matter said Tuesday. The Defense Ministry’s Okinawa bureau will soon inform the Okinawa Prefectural Government of the placement of soil in the new area, which will be implemented as part of a controversial project to relocate operations of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, also in the prefecture, to a replacement facility to be built in Henoko. The decision is likely to draw further backlash from the prefectural government. Gov. Denny Tamaki has expressed his determination to block the base relocation plan. The central government started pouring soil into the waters of a 6.3-hectare section near the tip of Cape Henoko on Dec. 14. According to the sources, around 20 percent of the reclamation work in the section has been completed so far, and seawater is expected to recede there by around April if the work progresses smoothly. The bureau plans to start dumping soil into the waters of a 33-hectare area next to the section currently undergoing reclamation work. Currently, the bureau is inspecting seawalls and expects to start work within the new area in late March, the sources said. The government is moving ahead with the project off Henoko in the hopes of making the base relocation a done deal.

u.s. military
futenma
henoko
military base


Farewell, Johnny: Japan's oldest chimpanzee dies at 69

Abstract: KOBE - Johnny, Japan’s oldest chimpanzee, has died at the estimated age of 69, a zoo in Kobe said Tuesday. The African-born male chimp had seen his appetite diminish since around September and he had been staying inside his sleeping chamber since 2017 due to age-related health issues, according to Oji Zoo. A zookeeper found him dead Tuesday morning of what is believed to be natural causes, said the city-run zoo. After arriving at the zoo in 1955 at the estimated age of 5, Johnny produced a total of nine offspring with five partners. His first, born in 1963, was the first chimpanzee to be raised in captivity in Japan. “The average lifespan of chimpanzees is believed to be 40 to 50 years” so he had quite a long life, a public relations official at the zoo said.


With Pyongyang summit nowhere in sight, pessimism grows in Tokyo over North Korean abductions issue

Abstract: With no possibility of a Japan-North Korea summit anywhere in sight, and hopes fading that South Korea could pave the way for such a meeting amid deteriorating ties between Tokyo and Seoul, pessimism seems to be growing in Japan over whether the issue of Pyongyang’s past abductions of Japanese nationals will be resolved anytime soon. “We’ll aim to resolve the abduction issue by exploring every possible opportunity” for a resolution, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a meeting Tuesday between the government and the ruling bloc. The government has repeatedly said it is continuing “every effort” to resolve the issue by trying to contact North Korea through diplomatic channels, including through embassies in Beijing. But it does not appear to have found even a starting point for negotiations with Pyongyang. North Korea has shown little interest in Japan as it focuses on negotiations with the United States over its denuclearization, a Japanese government official said. “Japan-North Korea relations are in a stalemate,” said a senior Foreign Ministry official. At a news conference in London last week, Abe admitted that “nothing has been set” on a possible summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A recent deterioration in Japan-South Korea ties has also damaged the potential for productive negotiations between Tokyo and Pyongyang going forward. Japan and South Korea have exchanged criticism following rulings by South Korean courts against Japanese firms over wartime forced labor, as well as Tokyo’s claim that a South Korean warship recently directed its fire-control radar at a Japanese patrol plane. Some lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are calling for sanctions and other steps against South Korea, including recalling Japan’s ambassador to South Korea and limiting the number of visas issued. South Korean President Moon Jae-in brought up the abduction issue at his summits with Kim in April and September last year, and the North Korean leader had expressed Pyongyang’s readiness for dialogue with Tokyo. These developments had raised hope in Japan that Moon would move to broker talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang, but that possibility has waned due to strained Japan-South Korea ties. Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi Yokota, one of the abduction victims, met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga in Tokyo on Tuesday and urged the government to resolve the abduction issue. “My husband is in the hospital and said he will survive until he sees Megumi,” Sakie Yokota told Suga. “We want you to realize a reunion as soon as possible.”

shinzo abe
north korea
kim jong un
south korea
abductions
megumi yokota
north korea-japan relations


Kochi city creates lucky charms with fragments of bridge that survived near collapse

Abstract: KOCHI - Kochi Prefecture’s western city of Shimanto has created a good luck charm containing a fragment of a low-water crossing that has withstood the risk of collapse, intended for students wishing for success in upcoming entrance exams. The aging condition of the Iwama low-water crossing, a tourist spot that spans the Shimanto River, came to a head in November 2017, when one of its metal piers sank due to corrosion and caused the bridge’s road surface to bend in a V-shape. The damaged part was removed in spring last year. The city created a key chain with concrete fragments from the road surface encased in acrylic resin, capitalizing on the good fortune of the crossing to have not “fallen” or “failed” despite the precarious conditions. The crossing “has endured through water currents for long period of time and held on in a V-shape, which could evoke the image of victory,” said one official. “I encourage exam takers to do their best with perseverance.” Each charm costs ¥500 ($4.61). Only a thousand of them will be available for sale. Twenty percent of the sales proceeds will be set aside for repairing the crossing. The charm can be purchased at the Shimanto City Tourism Association and other locations. The product can also be sent by mail. For inquiries, call the city’s roadside rest area, named Yotte Nishi-Tosa, on 0880-52-1398.


In rare ruling, court fines Japanese man who anonymously posted hateful anti-Korean remarks against teenager

Abstract: A Kawasaki court has ordered a 66-year-old man to pay compensation and remove defamatory remarks from his blog that were targeted at a teenage Korean resident in greater Tokyo, lawyers representing the boy said Wednesday. At a news conference held in Tokyo, the attorneys involved in the case called for the government to implement stricter regulations to curb online hate speech and protect potential victims. The teenager became the target of hate speech in January last year after attending a music event in Kawasaki, where he went to junior high school. His name was later published in a newspaper article about the event on Jan. 22. The same day, his name also appeared on an anonymous blog titled “Virulent Alien Parasites Named Zainichi ,” in which abusive comments about the boy’s ethnicity were written. The term zainichi is often used to describe residents of Korean ethnicity living in Japan. Zainichi Koreans are also the frequent target of hate speech in the country. Since the derogatory remarks were first posted, tens of thousands of hateful slurs, comments and insults targeting the boy have been left on the blog, including “Korean pseudo-human,” “your appearance, your brains and everything about you is just a chon (a derogatory word used to describe Koreans)” and “Zainichi, get out of Japan.” After consulting with lawyers, he filed a complaint with the local police. The police confirmed the perpetrator’s identity and referred the case to prosecutors in October. The Kawasaki Summary Court concluded on Jan. 5 of this year that Yuji Takeshita, from the city of Oita, was behind the attacks and that he had defamed the teenager. The court ordered the man to pay ¥9,000 in compensation. “It’s a rare ruling for an anonymous online hate speech case and we believe it will serve as a lesson, not only for the person who attacked (the Korean boy), but for others posting such insults, even anonymously,” Yasuko Morooka, one of the boy’s lawyers, told reporters. During the news conference Wednesday, the lawyers requested the boy’s name be withheld because he is a minor and because exposing his name once again could cause him emotional distress. Takeshita claimed he had no intent to insult the boy and treated the blog as a diary, according to Morooka. Morooka argued, however, that the summary court’s decision is not harsh enough to make up for the harm caused by the perpetrator and may actually discourage victims of online hate speech from seeking justice. She also suggested that existing laws on hate speech and related procedures should be amended. “These procedures cause distress to the victims,” Morooka said, adding that the existing laws aren’t enough and such regulations may lead to additional victimization to those who bring cases against online attackers to court as their names will likely be disclosed publicly. The process is also time-consuming. She said the relatively light punishments that are handed out by the courts — a fine of up to ¥10,000 or up to 30 days in jail — do little to prevent hate speech. To address the problem, the lawyers suggested the implementation of regulations prohibiting such crimes. They also suggested online hate speech cases be reviewed by a third-party panel. Regulations and hate speech-related laws should be amended to better protect the personal information of victims, the lawyers added. In a message delivered through the attorneys, the boy said he felt relieved when he learned of the court’s ruling but added that “it won’t help me forget all the insults written on that blog; it didn’t only hurt me, it also harmed my family. We were all victims.” “Online hate speech still goes unchecked. I just want Japan to implement rules so everyone can surf the internet without having to go through what I have,” he added.

lawsuits
discrimination
hate speech
korean schools