| Some of the most recent deadly US mass shootings Posted: 03 Aug 2019 04:57 PM PDT  A gunman opened fire Saturday at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas, killing 20 people and injuring more than two dozen. — Feb. 15, 2019: Gary Martin killed five co-workers at a manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, during a disciplinary meeting where he was fired. — Oct. 27, 2018: Robert Bowers is accused of opening fire at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and injuring others.
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| REFILE-Johnson's top aide says UK lawmakers can't stop no-deal Brexit - Sunday Telegraph Posted: 03 Aug 2019 01:57 PM PDT ![REFILE-Johnson's top aide says UK lawmakers can't stop no-deal Brexit - Sunday Telegraph]( "REFILE-Johnson's top aide says UK lawmakers can't stop no-deal Brexit - Sunday Telegraph") Lawmakers will be unable to prevent a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 even if they dismiss Britain's government in a vote of no confidence next month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's top aide has advised, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Dominic Cummings, one of architects of the 2016 campaign to leave the European Union, told ministers that Johnson has the power to schedule a general election after the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline if lawmakers try to block a no-deal Brexit by bringing down the government, the Sunday Telegraph said, citing sources.
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| Yemeni officials: Forces pursue al-Qaida militants, 8 dead Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:51 AM PDT ![Yemeni officials: Forces pursue al-Qaida militants, 8 dead]( "Yemeni officials: Forces pursue al-Qaida militants, 8 dead") Yemeni officials and tribal leaders said security forces were pursuing al-Qaida militants Saturday in the southern Abyan province, leaving at least seven extremists and one soldier dead. The fighting came a day after al-Qaida attacked and overran a military camp in the same province, killing at least 20 soldiers. The tribal leaders asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
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| Will Israel’s New Missile Defense System Stop Iran if a War Begins? Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:31 AM PDT  Israel's new Arrow 3 anti-missile system has just passed a major milestone.Not in Israel, but 6,000 miles away in Kodiak, Alaska. The Arrow 3 test on July 28 comes just days after Israel's arch-enemy Iran itself tested a new ballistic missile."Flight Test Arrow-01 demonstrated the Israeli Arrow Weapon System's ability to conduct a high altitude hit-to-kill engagement," said the U.S. Missile Defense Agency announcement. "Interceptor tests were conducted that successfully destroyed target missiles.""The Arrow-3 Interceptor successfully demonstrated an engagement capability against the exo-atmospheric target during the test. Although not part of the Israeli architecture, a U.S. AN-TPY2 radar participated in the test. Preliminary analysis indicates that test objectives were successfully achieved.""The performance was perfect," announced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Every hit a bull's eye."The Arrow 3 is a joint Israel-U.S. weapon designed to destroy ballistic missiles in outer space, before they have a chance to drop their warheads into the atmosphere. The project is managed by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the Israeli Missile Defense Organization, with development by Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing.The Arrow 3, an improved version of the earlier Arrow 2, is a two-stage hypersonic interceptor with an estimated range of 1,500 miles downrange and 62 miles high. It is armed with a kinetic warhead that destroys missiles through sheer high-speed impact.
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| Celebrities, royals and politicians brace themselves as court orders release of explosive Jeffrey Epstein files Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:07 AM PDT  In Room 270, the records management unit, on the second floor of an imposing granite and marble courthouse in lower Manhattan, 167 documents totaling more than 2,000 pages are being kept under lock and key. But they are about to be unsealed and made public - making a host of important people around the world, including celebrities, politicians and royals, very nervous. The files contain explosive allegations in the case of Giuffre v Maxwell, in which Virginia Giuffre, a woman who claims to have been Jeffrey Epstein's teenage "sex slave", sued Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and the billionaire's former girlfriend, for defamation. The case was settled in May 2017 on the eve of the trial but the details were not disclosed and the final judgment and supporting documents were sealed, with the court noting the "highly sensitive nature of the underlying allegations." According to other court documents that have been published, Ms Giuffre has made allegations of sexual abuse against "numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well‐known Prime Minister, and other world leaders." An appeal to unseal the rest of the documents was launched by the Miami Herald newspaper, which has spearheaded media investigations into Epstein. It was rejected three times. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell became a fixture on the New York social scene after she moved to the city in 1991 Credit: Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images But last month the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered their release, ruling that the public's right to know outweighed the privacy rights of the high-profile individuals named. It what may be an indication of the fame of those individuals, the judges made a striking plea to the media to "exercise restraint" in reporting the allegations about to come to light. They also allowed parties involved to apply for minor redactions, delaying the release. Another delay is possible as Miss Maxwell has launched an appeal to keep the documents sealed, her lawyers arguing that a full release would trigger a "furious feeding frenzy." They wrote: "Plaintiff Giuffre made numerous allegations of sexual, if not criminal, conduct against a wide range of third parties. Because of the media no reference to anyone in this case is benign: a reference to any person is toxic and lethal to that person's reputation. Facts and truth are all but irrelevant." The legal battle between Ms Giuffre and Miss Maxwell began in late 2014 when Ms Giuffre claimed that Epstein sexually abused her starting in 2000 when she was 16, with the "assistance and participation" of Miss Maxwell. She also made allegations against the Duke of York, which were categorically denied by Buckingham Palace. Miss Maxwell described the claims as "obvious lies," and Ms Giuffre then sued her for defamation. Buckingham Palace has categorically denied any misconduct on the part of Prince Andrew, who was pictured with Virginia Giuffre, then Virginia Roberts, and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001 In a recent statement Josh Schiller, a lawyer for Ms Giuffre, said the appeal court was unlikely to overturn an unsealing decision, and he believed Miss Maxwell's appeal would cause only a "short delay" in releasing the documents. He added: "There is an overwhelming public interest." The appeal court's decision to release the documents came just three days before Epstein was arrested last month, charged with sex trafficking. Prosecutors in New York have accused him of assaulting dozens of girls as young as 14. The case has thrown the Marlborough College and Oxford-educated Miss Maxwell, 57, back into the spotlight. She moved to New York in 1991, the year her father - disgraced newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell - died. In New York, herself and Epstein became a fixture on the social scene. Miss Maxwell was well-connected. Guests including Donald Trump had partied on her father's yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, as far back as 1989. She is a private helicopter pilot and a deep water submarine pilot. In 2012 she founded the TerraMar Project in New York, aimed at creating a "global ocean community" to protect international waters, and spoke about it at the United Nations. Last month, six days after Epstein's arrest, the TerraMar Project announced it would "cease all operations." Miss Maxwell sold her Manhattan townhouse for $15 million in 2016, and her current whereabouts are unclear.
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| Did Israeli F-35 Stealth Fighters Really Bomb Iraq? Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:00 AM PDT  Israel's F-35 stealth fighters are positively supernatural: here, there and everywhere. In 2018, the Israeli Air Force claimed its new F-35s had attacked Iranian targets in Syria. Also in 2018, Arab press made dubious claims that IAF F-35s had flown over Iran.Now comes reports that Israeli F-35s have attacked Iranian targets in Iraq, according to Arab media.Western diplomatic sources allegedly the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that on July 19, "Tel Aviv carried out an airstrike earlier this month against an Iranian rockets depot northeast of Baghdad."El Arabiya television reported that the strike hit Iranian ballistic missiles being transported in refrigerated food trucks. Several Hezbollah and Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members were reportedly killed,A second strike targeted another Iranian base, according to Asharq Al-Awsat. "The Ashraf base in Iraq, a former base used by the Iranian opposition People's Mujahedin of Iran, was targeted by an air raid," according to the newspaper. "The base lies 80 kilometers from the border with Iran and 40 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. The sources revealed that the strikes targeted Iranian 'advisors' and a ballistic missile shipment that had recently arrived from Iran to Iraq."Compounding the mystery were initial reports that unidentified drones conducted the attacks.
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| Sudanese activists, army finalize power-sharing deal Posted: 03 Aug 2019 10:41 AM PDT  The African Union envoy to Sudan said Saturday the pro-democracy movement and the ruling military council have finalized a power-sharing agreement. The military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir in April following months of mass protests against his three-decade-long authoritarian rule.
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| Hundreds Detained in Moscow on Second Weekend of Protests Posted: 03 Aug 2019 10:37 AM PDT ![Hundreds Detained in Moscow on Second Weekend of Protests]( "Hundreds Detained in Moscow on Second Weekend of Protests") (Bloomberg) -- Russian police detained almost 700 people, including opposition leaders, at Moscow protests against the authorities' decision to ban anti-Kremlin candidates from running for the city council next month, according to independent legal-aid group OVD-Info.The number of protesters being held reached 685 as of 6:40 p.m. local time, the group estimated on its website. The Moscow police unit on its website said that about 1,500 people participated in the "unsanctioned events" as of 5:56 p.m., with around 600 detained.Lyubov Sobol, who works for the Anti-Corruption Fund run by opposition politician Alexey Navalny, was taken to a police station as she was getting into a taxi to the rally, as broadcast live by the online TV channel Dozhd. Sobol has been on a hunger strike for three weeks over the rejection of her candidacy.Politician Kostantin Jankauskas was detained immediately after leaving a police detention center, where he spent the previous week after participating in last Saturday's rally, according to a video posted on the Twitter account of Olga Chesare, Sobol's colleague.The rallies, running now for the second weekend in a row, come as President Vladimir Putin's approval ratings are at the lowest since 2013 after five years of falling living standards.As the Moscow protests were escalating, Russia's Investigative Committee on Saturday opened a criminal case, alleging that Navalny's Anti-Corruption fund was part of a money-laundering scheme.Unidentified employees of the fund and people close to it received about 1 billion rubles ($15.4 million) in cash and foreign currency from third parties in 2016-2018, transferred the money into bank accounts and then into the fund, the investigators said in a statement on the Committee website.The Committee plans to "identify the sources of the illegally received money, and all the participants of the illegal scheme to finance the fund," according to the statement.Criminal CaseEarlier this week, the investigators opened a separate criminal case into the protests, calling them "mass unrests" and leaving participants vulnerable to sentences of up to eight years in prison and organizers facing as long as 15 years.As a small concession, on Tuesday the Moscow electoral commission agreed to review the application of one rejected candidate, Sergei Mitrokhin, who represents the liberal Yabloko party.(Updates with OVD-Info estimates in first and second paragraphs.)\--With assistance from Henry Meyer.To contact the reporter on this story: Dina Khrennikova in Moscow at dkhrennikova@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Brian Wingfield, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iraq's Yazidi women must abandon kids born in IS captivity Posted: 03 Aug 2019 09:44 AM PDT ![Iraq's Yazidi women must abandon kids born in IS captivity]( "Iraq's Yazidi women must abandon kids born in IS captivity") Yazidi women and girls who were enslaved and raped by Islamic State militants have few choices. Five years ago Saturday, IS militants launched attacks on Yazidi villages in northern Iraq, kidnapping, enslaving and massacring thousands. In April, a month after the final military defeat of IS, Yazidi religious leaders made an apparent bid to protect the insular and still-grieving community by decreeing that they will embrace survivors of militant attacks.
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| UN: Monthly Afghan casualties highest since 2017 Posted: 03 Aug 2019 09:07 AM PDT  July saw the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in a single month since 2017, the U.N. mission said Saturday. Its preliminary findings indicate more than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded, mainly due to a spike in casualties from insurgent attacks. It said more than 50% of casualties were caused by bombings.
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| UN: Monthly Afghan casualties highest since 2017 Posted: 03 Aug 2019 06:43 AM PDT ![UN: Monthly Afghan casualties highest since 2017]( "UN: Monthly Afghan casualties highest since 2017") July saw the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in a single month since 2017, the U.N. mission said Saturday. Its preliminary findings indicate more than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded, mainly due to a spike in casualties from insurgent attacks. It said more than 50% of casualties were caused by bombings.
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| Russian police arrest more than 600 protesters in central Moscow Posted: 03 Aug 2019 06:23 AM PDT  Police detained more than 600 demonstrators in Moscow on Saturday as Russian opposition supporters took to the streets in defiance of a formidable security presence, in fresh protests calling for fair elections in the capital next month. The unauthorised march, which comes after stark warnings from Russian authorities and a crackdown on Kremlin critics, was billed as a "stroll" along Moscow's leafy boulevards as anger grows over the refusal of officials to let popular opposition candidates run in next month's city parliament elections. Most of those candidates and opposition leaders are still in police detention following the last rally, as what began as a local issue has boiled over into one of the worst political conflicts of recent years. At least 600 were detained by police, according to OVD-Info, a non-governmental organisation that operates a hotline for detainees. Lyubov Sobol, an ally of key opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was detained as she set off for the rally. "Why are you detaining me?" she shouted as riot police in helmets dragged her out of a taxi. Protesters also criticised the forceful crackdown by police on earlier peaceful gatherings, where 1,400 people were detained Credit: TASS Ms Sobol is on the 21st day of a hunger strike that she began after authorities barred her from running in the polls and was visibly weak. A heavy police presence, metal barriers and empty buses used to transport detainees lined the boulevards, and mobile internet was down in central Moscow. Some shops and cafes were shut Saturday following warnings by city authorities. About a hundred people were pushed out from central Trubnaya square by a line of riot police. Several hundred more were spread out along the boulevards. "I'm here because I want them to let candidates take part in the elections,"said 22-year-old artist Varvara. "I want there to be big changes... now there is an atmosphere of total control." Candidates for September elections needed to collect signatures from city residents to stand in the polls but officials said they were disqualified because some names were forged. The opposition insists it was blocked from running arbitrarily, and the whole vetting process was skewed against them. Many Muscovites said their signatures in support of opposition candidates were declared invalid for no reason, and attempts to verify them were ignored. President Vladimir Putin has yet to comment on the situation in Moscow. In the polls in September, the opposition hopes to end the monopoly of Kremlin loyalists in Moscow's parliament. The body decides the city's multi-billion-dollar budget but lacks political independence from mayor Sergei Sobyanin, an ally of Putin.
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| Trump promotes racist Katie Hopkins attack on ‘nipple-height’ London mayor Sadiq Khan Posted: 03 Aug 2019 05:32 AM PDT  Donald Trump has again promoted a racist attack on London mayor Sadiq Khan.The US president retweeted British far-right activist Katie Hopkins, who criticised Mr Khan over knife crime in the UK capital. "The nipple-height Mayor of Londonistan has NEVER been so unpopular. He has MINUS approval ratings because we are stab-city," Hopkins tweeted earlier this week."London deserves better. Get Khan Out." She included a screen grab of a news article claiming Mr Khan's approval ratings had dropped to the lowest of his mayoralty. On Saturday morning, Mr Trump retweeted the post, along with a second Hopkins tweet in which she blamed German chancellor Angela Merkel for crimes committed by migrants in the country.Mr Trump has in recent months repeatedly mocked Mr Khan – a British citizen of Pakistani descent - for both his record as London mayor and his small stature. "Kahn (sic) reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job – only half his height," the US president tweeted during a state visit to Britain in June. He also called Mr Khan a "stone cold loser" who had been "foolishly 'nasty'" towards him. Later that month he promoted another Hopkins tweet referring to the capital as "Londonistan", a term often used to disparage the local Muslim community.Mr Khan, a practising Muslim, has been a longtime critic of Mr Trump and the British government's reluctance to criticise him over his indiscretions and racist outbursts.In June, the Labour politician compared Mr Trump to 20th century fascists and branded him a "6ft 3 child in the White House". Although knife crime is up in London, the number of offences involving knives hit an all-time high across the entire country, suggesting the problem is not limited to the capital.
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| Snubbed by North Korea, Pompeo hits other Asian turbulence Posted: 03 Aug 2019 05:28 AM PDT  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left Thailand on Saturday with his hopes for resuming nuclear talks with North Korea dashed, while facing an escalating trade war with China and a potentially devastating breakdown in relations between key American allies Japan and South Korea. After three days in Bangkok that the Trump administration had expected could herald an end to the impasse in North Korea negotiations, Pompeo instead departed without progress on that front as Pyongyang continued to launch ballistic missiles, heightening unease over prospects for a denuclearization deal. Pompeo expressed disappointment that the North had sent neither its foreign minister nor a counterpart for the chief U.S. negotiator to the Thai capital.
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| Democrats Debate, AMLO Speaks, Death on the Nile: Weekend Reads Posted: 03 Aug 2019 05:00 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every day? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.Did the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates squander a chance to court auto workers and union voters at their second round of debates in Detroit? What does Mexico's new president have to say about Donald Trump's border policy? And how did a symbol of Ethiopia's prosperous future become a potential reminder of the country's struggles to shake its turbulent past? Delve into these and other questions surrounding this week's political news with the latest edition of Weekend Reads. Queen's Banker Is Less Picky About Clients as Brexit Takes TollCoutts & Co., Queen Elizabeth II's banker, is getting less genteel about chasing new clients in Brexit Britain. Edward Robinson takes a closer look. at why. Democratic 2020 Candidates Inch Away From Medicare for AllIn April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill. Now, many of them are inching away from it. Tyler Pager and Joshua Green explain why. Russians Dream of Jobs in State-Owned Giants Like GazpromJake Rudnitsky reports that most Russians regard their dream job as working in a giant state-run company like Gazprom, nearly three decades after the collapse of communism ushered in an era of capitalism.Trump Saves About $1 Million With Powell's Interest Rate CutTrump is likely to save nearly $1 million in annual borrowing costs after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell – who has been the subject of withering presidential criticism – cut interest rates this week, Shahien Nasiripour reports.China's Leaders Face Crises on Two Fronts at Secretive RetreatIain Marlow and Dandan Li explain why the Chinese Communist Party's secretive summer getaway on the Yellow Sea is likely to be anything but relaxing this year. Executives Abandon South African State Companies Over IndecisionTop South African businessmen called upon to help save ailing state-owned companies are abandoning their posts, frustrated by indecision and political interference. Loni Prinsloo and Roxanne Henderson take a closer look. Death on the Nile Haunts Ethiopia's RebirthMarc Champion and Nizar Manek explore an epic power struggle involving a mysterious death, ethnic tensions and an attempted coup.What Exactly Does Trump Want for the Dollar?Amid the Trump administration's chaotic messaging, it's unclear whether the U.S. is still committed to a strong greenback, Katherine Greifeld reports. And finally… To help battle global warming, companies around the world are expected to spend billions of dollars over the next decade building devices aimed at sucking carbon from the atmosphere. The thing is, Mother Nature already made one. Emily Chasan looks at efforts to cultivate empress trees, which mature several times faster than your average oak or pine and absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre. To contact the author of this story: Kathleen Hunter in London at khunter9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Tony Czuczka at aczuczka@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iran Watch: Should Trump Fear Tehran's Last Missile Test? Posted: 03 Aug 2019 05:00 AM PDT  Iran does test medium-range ballistic missiles, although not commonly. What HappenedFor the first time since a standoff between the United States and Iran escalated into attacks on oil tankers, Iran has conducted a medium-range ballistic missile test. According to U.S. officials, Iran test-fired a Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile earlier this week that traveled 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) — distance enough to hit Saudi Arabia and come close to Israel.Iran's strategy in carrying out the test is likely twofold. For one, Tehran is engaging in a show of force against the United States as part of the aggressive regional strategy it has pursued over the last three months. At the same time, the launches provide Iran's engineers and missile designers an important opportunity to test technical and operational designs as part of the country's wider ballistic missile program. Iran's Missile Motivations
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| Russia: The Next Aircraft Carrier Super Power? Posted: 03 Aug 2019 04:30 AM PDT  In the 1980s, the Soviet Union laid down its first two true carriers, although only one was completed before the collapse of the country. Historically a land power, the Soviet Union grappled with the idea of a large naval aviation arm for most of its history, eventually settling on a series of hybrid aircraft carriers. Big plans for additional ships died with the Soviet collapse, but Russia inherited one large aircraft carrier at the end of the Cold War—that remains in service today. Although many of the problems that wracked the naval aviation projects of the Soviet Union remain today, the Russian navy nevertheless sports one of the more active aircraft carriers in the world.Recommended: Air War: Stealth F-22 Raptor vs. F-14 Tomcat (That Iran Still Flies)Recommended: A New Report Reveals Why There Won't Be Any 'New' F-22 RaptorsRecommended: How an 'Old' F-15 Might Kill Russia's New Stealth FighterHistory of Russian Naval Aviation
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| Five years on, Yazidis remember brutal IS onslaught Posted: 03 Aug 2019 04:29 AM PDT  Iraq's Yazidi minority held its summer festival on the weekend, five years after jihadists seized their ancestral heartland of Sinjar, in a brutal assault that still haunts the community. On August 3, 2014, Islamic State group fighters seized Mount Sinjar, and went on to slaughter thousands of Yazidi men and boys and abduct girls to be used as "sex slaves". The United Nations has said IS's actions could amount to genocide, and is investigating jihadist atrocities across Iraq.
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| Skirmishes over Hong Kong protests reflect growing Chinese influence on foreign university campuses Posted: 03 Aug 2019 03:52 AM PDT  In one scene, hundreds of Chinese students forcefully disrupt a pro-Hong Kong democracy rally with a speaker blasting out their national anthem. A young man disguised by a black facemask tears up a rally poster and throws it to the ground. Security guards hover nervously in between the two groups before inevitable violent skirmishes break out. In another ugly confrontation, three young Chinese men round on a female student staging a small demonstration to support Hong Kong's current protests. They aggressively demand that she speak Mandarin and tell her to find another citizenship if she does not want to be Chinese. "You are not human, you f**king stupid pig," says one of incensed men. Moments later one brushes against her and she falls to the ground. The clips from videos that went viral on social media this week were not filmed in Hong Kong, which has been shaken by eight weeks of pro-democracy rallies, but on the grounds of Australia's University of Queensland and Auckland University in New Zealand. Fears are growing that the altercations are a troubling portent of what is to come as the passions of Hong Kong citizens protesting Chinese rule spread to universities around the world. A man is questioned during a protest at Queensland University Credit: Dave Hunt/REX Experts point out, however, that the Hong Kong issue is simply another flashpoint illustrating a growing display of assertive nationalism by Chinese students studying on foreign campuses. Drew Pavlou, 20, a philosopher major and one of the organisers of the Queensland protest and who was seen shouting that Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, has "got to go" before his megaphone was snatched, said he has received numerous death threats. The young man, a grandson of Greek immigrants from Brisbane, told The Telegraph he was now too nervous to go home. "I don't really know where I'm going to be living next week," he said. The Chinese consulates in Auckland and Brisbane praised their protesting students for "spontaneous patriotism", drawing an unprecedented rebuke from Marise Payne, the Australian foreign minister, that diplomats should not interfere with free speech. Auckland University has launched a "formal investigation." Queensland stressed it would have "zero tolerance for violence and intimidation." The student clashes are a reminder of the dilemma facing universities of how to deal with a body of Chinese overseas students who bring not only a much-needed cash boost but also muscular nationalist demands that infringe on academic freedoms. For Australia in particular, which has benefited from China's economic growth and Chinese donations to its universities, more confrontations loom on the horizon. However, British and other foreign institutions must also grapple with China's attempts to impose its views. The protests began in support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement Credit: Dave Hunt/AP In some universities, links with the Confucius Institute, a state-backed organisation that promotes Chinese language and culture, have raised concerns about undue influence from Beijing. Earlier this year, the London School of Economics faced protests from Chinese students to change a sculpture that showed Taiwan as separate from China. In 2017, Durham University was pressured to ban Anastasia Lin, a critic of the Chinese Communist party, from a campus debate. Charles Parton, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the assertiveness of Chinese students was both a result of an early education in toeing the Communist party line and reflected state-led attempts to inject a Chinese worldview into foreign educational institutions. Cash-strapped universities should be wary of giving China too much leverage, he said. "There is a strategy to influence the way the UK generally thinks about [China] and, of course, our universities and think tanks are important opinion-moulders so they are more important in some ways," Mr Parton added. "This is where our future officials are brought up so if you can change the narrative about China generally, that's got to be to your advantage."
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| British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Is an Anglo-American Farce Posted: 03 Aug 2019 02:49 AM PDT  APThe great Hollywood director Billy Wilder, who was born in Eastern Europe when his home town was ruled from Vienna, once noted that the genius of Austria lay in convincing the world that Beethoven was a native son, but Hitler was not.Today we see a similar cultural sleight-of-hand, but this time in the Scepter'd Isle of Britain, where some would remind us that one of their own is actually one of ours. The satirical British magazine Private Eye's souvenir issue commemorating the ascent of Boris Johnson as prime minister is a hallmark of the genre. The caption on the cover the week of the moonshot anniversary, showing Johnson goofily mugging for the cameras as he enters Number 10 Downing Street, reads "Loon Landing." But it's the subhead that deserves closer attention: "The Ego Has Landed—America Plants Flag on U.K."Kamikaze Boris Johnson Risks Becoming Britain's Shortest-Serving PMThis isn't just another hackneyed reference to Johnson's surface similarities to Donald Trump, which include urine-colored tumbleweed coifs, the elevation of pathological mendacity to a political art form, and, excepting Johnson's higher erudition (he regularly spouts gobbets of ancient Greek), the impressive willingness to speak without coherence or elementary knowledge about the things that supposedly matter most to either man. * * *SEMINAL INSPIRATION* * *The United States might have installed a president for whom the pinnacle of notoriety was an unending smorgasbord of genital groping, but the United Kingdom now has a prime minister whose outspoken distaste for marital fidelity owes to his being "literally bursting with spunk." Which is why, for all the inevitable copy that's been filed about this "eccentric" English toff, Johnson is better seen as a thoroughly Anglo-American farce. He plays a Brit the way Americans are accustomed to thinking of one while often behaving more American than British.Still known to his family as "Al"—short for Alexander, his first name—the man everyone annoyingly calls Boris was born in Manhattan, raised partly in Washington, D.C.. Even as mayor of London he acted more like the mayor of an American megalopolis such as New York or Chicago, which is to say a "global ambassador" turned wild-eyed developer who left the city, like a crooked Tammany ward heeler, mired in unfinished infrastructure projects and needless debt. Johnson is also the apotheosis of that very American phenomenon, failing upward, having launched a brilliant career in journalism—more performance art than first draft of history—on being caught inventing quotations and sacked for it. His relationship with the truth only declined from there, but his income skyrocketed. Nor is the man who famously got stuck halfway down a zip-line during the Olympics, waving Union Jacks like some tourist-trap street merchant at Piccadilly, beyond swapping roast-beef cliches for apple-pie ones when it suits his needs. See, for instance, his last Daily Telegraph column before winning the party leadership and thus the premiership. The first two-thirds is dedicated to a gosh-wow commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the moonshot, with its near-fatal miscalculations and bare-bones technological marvels. The last third devolves into comparing that improbable scientific achievement with navigating the bureaucratic and ideological morass of Brexit, the very policy disaster Johnson, more than any other politician, unleashed upon his country, even though he was famously unsure about its prospects. "If they could use hand-knitted computer code to make a frictionless re-entry to Earth's atmosphere in 1969," he concludes, "we can solve the problem of frictionless trade at the Northern Irish border." By the time you arrive at this absurd sentence—one made even more so by the shoe-horned repetition of "frictionless"—you've almost forgotten that NASA is an American not British government agency, rendering the Brexit analogy utterly meaningless. Johnson might as well invoke the "Spirit of '76" to argue for opting for a no-deal outcome with Brussels. But no matter. These are mere details, and getting details wrong has always been his forte.* * *A FEAST OF BUNGLING* * *Even his avowed devotion to Churchill comes across less as a reverential tribute to the great man than as an upstart's ironic appreciation of a fellow huckster's progress. What Johnson loves most about his Tory predecessor are the shortcomings: the outsize appetites, the shameless ambition, and the shambles of a career—what he terms Churchill's "feast of bungling!"—redeemed by sheer will to power and world-historical circumstance. Forget licking Hitler. Living down Gallipoli, the return to the gold standard and the abdication crisis were the Last Lion's finest hours.Johnson's most self-conscious pen portrait, however, is his only work of fiction, a 2004 satire titled Seventy-Two Virgins. The novel features a Conservative backbencher named Roger Barlow who, quite by accident, saves the visiting American president from a jihadist kidnapping plot. Barlow is tow-headed, bicycling adulterer destined for oblivion until events intervene to make him an international hero. So far, so obvious.But here, I think, lies a coded message in the choice of surname for Johnson's alter ego, particularly as the book makes savage mockery of the so-called "special relationship." John Oliver Exposes 'Truly Disgusting' U.K. Prime Minister Boris JohnsonDennis Barlow is Evelyn Waugh's has-been English poet and transplant to the United States—well, Los Angeles, anyway—in The Loved One. He fails to make it as a screenwriter in Hollywood and becomes a minor embarrassment to a close-knit and tightly self-regulated coterie of fellow exiles, all of them witting self-parodies of stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen. "We limeys have a peculiar position to keep up, you know, Barlow," says Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, who routinely traipses through Bel Air in a cape and deer-stalker cap because it's what the yanks expect of him. "They may laugh at us a bit—the way we talk and the way we dress; our monocles—they may think us cliquey and stand-offish, but, by God, they respect us." * * *THE UN-LOVED ONE* * *It doesn't help that Barlow is a lower-order chancer, sans knighthood, with little to no self-respect and that he is a borderline sociopath to boot. Having been cast out of the movie business, he now earns a modest income working at a pet mortuary called the Happier Hunting Ground. By novel's end, and after a darkly hilarious entanglement with a dimwitted American mortician, he has decided that a far more lucrative racket on these shores lies in the non-sectarian clergy, catering to weddings and, given his prior speciality, funerals. Barlow is to be ordained. Well, this simply won't do and it threats to make Barlow a major embarrassment to Sir Ambrose and his Cricket Club, which serves as a kind of diplomatic mission dedicated to maintaining transatlantic cultural illusions. The club raises the money to send Barlow home where he at least can live out his life in discreet disgrace and not ruin things for the rest of the monocled castaways on the coast. This result, one senses, was what Barlow was searching for all through his steady descent into personal and national ruin: a free ride. That certainly sounds familiar, as does Waugh's subtitle for The Loved One: "an Anglo-American tragedy."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| George And Kellyanne Conway's Replies To Trump Dig Couldn't Be More At Odds Posted: 03 Aug 2019 01:51 AM PDT  The husband and wife tweeted wildly different responses to the former United Nations ambassador's criticism of the president.
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| State Department Official: North Korea's Missile Tests are 'Huge Mistake' Posted: 03 Aug 2019 12:50 AM PDT  BANGKOK—Brushing aside repeated entreaties from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a meeting, North Korea was a no-show this week at a diplomatic forum in Bangkok. The snub didn't deter Pompeo from holding out hope that Pyongyang soon will come back to the table and resume denuclearization talks.From the get-go, North Korea loomed large over the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. Not helping matters, North Korea test-fired short-range ballistic missiles three times in the past week, casting further doubts on U.S.-led efforts to denuclearize the reclusive communist regime and de-escalate military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.Nevertheless, going into the forum Thursday, Pompeo said he and U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, also in Bangkok this week, were both ready to resume talks with Pyongyang."We stand ready to continue our diplomatic conversation with the North Koreans," Pompeo told reporters at a joint news conference Thursday with Thailand's foreign minister. "I regret that it looks like I'm not going to have the opportunity to do that while I'm here in Bangkok, but we're ready to go."Pompeo's arrival in Asia on Wednesday was met by news of a North Korean missile test—coming just days after Pyongyang tested two KN-23 missiles. Then on Friday, despite Pompeo's calls for a meeting in Bangkok, North Korea conducted another missile test—its third in one week."The diplomatic path is often fraught with bumps," Pompeo said during a speech Friday, adding that behind-the-scenes communications were ongoing between the U.S. and North Korea."Lots of conversations are taking place," Pompeo said, adding that diplomacy is "the right approach."Olive Branch
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| Moscow Decides to Whitewash True Street Art Posted: 02 Aug 2019 11:00 PM PDT ![Moscow Decides to Whitewash True Street Art]( "Moscow Decides to Whitewash True Street Art") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Just like the recent violence against peaceful protesters, a new graffiti policy adopted by the city of Moscow reflects how the city of my birth has deteriorated under an authoritarian government that pretends to improve it at a huge cost. Elsewhere, thoughtful street art policies have driven enormous organic improvements of the urban environment -- but implementing them requires an appreciation for freedom that today's Russian authorities lack.The new rules, adopted last month, essentially outlaw any street art experimentation. They require artists and building owners to apply for permits needing the approval of no fewer than seven different city departments. They will only be granted only for murals that "popularize outstanding personalities, historic events, science, sports and art." There's also a list of what is impermissible, including depictions of smoking and drinking; any kind of advertising, including for nonprofits and causes; violence; images that may offend members of any social group or profession; images of explosives except fireworks; pictures that "discredit parents and educators" – it goes on and on. Even with permission, graffiti can only be painted between April and November, and the approval of a city-appointed commission is required when the work is finished, otherwise the building owner may be ordered to remove it.If these rules are rigorously enforced – and there's no reason to expect that they won't be – they'll spell the end of a vibrant culture that has flourished in Moscow, and even received the city government's support, especially in freer times before the 2014 Crimea annexation. (In 2013, a huge street art festival resulted in 150 large murals by Russian and foreign masters of the genre.) The city government is acquiring a monopoly over what should be considered beautiful on its streets – a totalitarian approach unworthy of a true global city, a status Moscow has always craved and sometimes deserved.Other major cities have widely divergent, but almost always less restrictive, approaches to street art. In New York, graffiti are only allowed with the building owner's express permission, otherwise enforcement is harsh; spray paint isn't even sold to minors. Berlin, which has some of the world's most daring and impressive street art, has formally adopted a similar approach – in theory, one can even go to jail for three years for defacing buildings – but enforcement is lax because the city has a reputation to maintain. Effectively, the onus is on underground artists to produce images that no one will want to remove; that makes for some memorable walls throughout the city.In London, regulation is up to local councils. Some are street art friendly, allowing all kinds of activity except the most primitive "tagging" \-- essentially gang signatures on walls -- in the belief that good graffiti draw tourists, while others impose strict bans regardless of building owners' preferences. In my view, the city with the best street art policy is Lisbon, which adopted a two-pronged approach to the phenomenon in 2008 to deal with ever louder complaints from businesses and residents in the city center. On the one hand, it stepped up antigraffiti enforcement in most of the city and boosted spending on clean-up campaigns; on the other hand, it created the Urban Art Gallery under the auspices of the city's Department of Cultural Heritage. This agency has turned one problem neighborhood after another into makeshift galleries where every kind of artwork is allowed, including tagging. The idea is to find places where local residents don't mind it because it makes the street prettier – and in the end, safer. Shady characters flee from the city-backed urban art festivals; urban artists are also good at self-organization, so art tends to displace crime.The Urban Art Gallery's projects – and sometimes its protection of worthy art that springs up without its blessing – have created a constantly changing, competitive environment in which the most impressive works survive for years because nobody dares paint them over, but the more transitory works disappear in days or weeks.Empowering building owners leads to commercialization. Leaving decisions to city officials kills spontaneity. Having no policy at all leaves a city's walls to gangs and talentless taggers to deface. Lisbon has managed to avoid all three of these traps. As a result, looking at graffiti is perhaps the best way to see the city now. The scene has drawn many of the best artists from Europe, the U.S. and Latin America, and the sheer variety of art on the city's walls is astounding even to a jaded Berliner. Lisbon is not a rich city, but its seedier areas, especially in the center, have been transformed by the imaginative, often socially conscious and politically opinionated work that ranges from tiny paste-ups with haunting anonymous poetry to masterfully executed murals taking up an entire wall.Moscow is much wealthier than Lisbon. Its per capita economic output, adjusted for purchasing power parity, of $54,000 is about 51% higher than that of the Portuguese capital. As the shopping window of President Vladimir Putin's Russia, the metropolis appears not to need the kind of bottom-up initiative that has transformed Lisbon's look and feel. It would rather invest in top-down beautification, which leaves more opportunities for corruption as streets are needlessly repaved and facades repainted. In such a city, art can only be the product of bureaucratic decisions. On the plus side: That leaves a lot off walls to be painted on when both the city and the country are free again.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iran vs. Britain: Who Would Win if a War Starts? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 09:00 PM PDT  Breathless was the headline in Britain's tabloid Daily Express: "Iran military strength REVEALED as tensions with the UK soar.""A comparison of the UK and Iran's military strength shows Britain falling behind when it comes to manpower, land and naval strength and petroleum resources," the newspaper proclaimed after Iran seized a British tanker in the Persian Gulf, in retaliation for Britain seizing an Iranian tanker at Gibraltar.The Daily Express article was based on GlobalFirepower.com, which features both statistics on the armed forces of 137 nations, and ranks those nations using a proprietary formula that apparently includes a nation's population and military manpower, geographical size, financial strength, oil reserves, transportation infrastructure, and quantity of military hardware.Britain ranks eighth on the "Global Firepower Index," while Iran comes in not far behind in 14th place (the U.S. comes in first place, Israel 17th). Indeed, GlobalFirepower.com lists Iran as being stronger than Britain in several categories: 873,000 military personnel to Britain's 233,000, 1,634 Iranian tanks to 331 British vehicles and 386 Iranian naval vessels to 76 British (Britain is credited with more airpower, with 811 military aircraft to 509 Iranian). Iran has more oil, but weaker finances.All of which proves how much statistics can be misleading. Britain and Iran are not in the same league at all.
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| Saudi Arabia Is Paying Billions for the U.S. Navy Ship the Navy Hates Posted: 02 Aug 2019 06:00 PM PDT  On July 29, members of the U.S. Senate voted forty-five to forty to block new sales of laser-guided bombs and aircraft maintenance services to Saudi Arabia—falling short of the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto by the Trump administration blocking the ban from taking effect. Despite deteriorating public support for Riyadh due to its implication in an exceptional number of civilian deaths in Yemen and the murder of one of its own citizens in the Turkish embassy, the flow of U.S. arms is set to continue.Earlier in May, the Trump administration argued the new sales could be authorized on an emergency basis, bypassing congressional review, due to escalating tensions with Iran in the Persian Gulf.However, one of the arms sales most pertinent to Saudi Arabia's ability to police the increasingly tense waterways is already well underway, having been years in the making.Since 2008, the Royal Saudi Arabian Navy has planned to invest $20 billion in its SNEP II naval expansion project. It currently operates seven frigates, four thousand-ton Badr-class corvettes and nine 500-ton patrol boats. All but three of its frigates date back to the 1980s.
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| Remains of 25 more Korean War service members identified from boxes turned over by North Korea Posted: 02 Aug 2019 05:02 PM PDT  U.S. military researchers have identified 25 more missing Korean War service members whose remains were included in 55 boxes turned over by North Korea last summer in the wake of President Donald Trump's first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Until now, seven sets of remains had been identified by researchers working out of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's (DPAA) laboratory in Hawaii.
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