| Op-Ed: If Kim Jong Un dies, who's next in line for his seat? North Korea has no idea Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:57 PM PDT  There is no clear favorite in the in the race among those who might take over in North Korea if Kim Jong Un dies.
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| Trump: ‘I do have a very good idea’ about Kim Jong Un Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:36 PM PDT |
| Texas, Ohio among many states to take steps toward reopening Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:30 PM PDT  Across the country, an ever-changing patchwork of loosening stay-home orders and business restrictions took shape Monday. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott outlined a slow reopening of one of the world's largest economies amid the coronavirus pandemic. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's first steps toward reopening will require masks for workers and shoppers.
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| Coronavirus: What Africa countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:22 PM PDT  What Africa countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns.
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| China in Africa Is More Than a Land Grab Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:00 PM PDT |
| Coronavirus: Nigeria to ease Abuja and Lagos lockdowns on 4 May Posted: 27 Apr 2020 03:38 PM PDT  There will be new nationwide measures, including a night-time curfew and mandatory face masks.
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| In twist to press arms ban, US asserts role in Iran deal Posted: 27 Apr 2020 03:07 PM PDT  President Donald Trump's administration has persistently trashed a nuclear deal with Iran. The push has drawn skepticism from Western allies and has led critics to question if the ultimate aim is to kill the deal entirely, potentially in the final stretch of Trump's re-election campaign. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called on United Nations members to renew the ban on all conventional arms exports to Iran which is due to expire in October.
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| Barr to prosecutors: Look for unconstitutional virus rules Posted: 27 Apr 2020 02:53 PM PDT |
| Is North Korea's Kim Jong Un Alive or Dead? Posted: 27 Apr 2020 02:20 PM PDT  Mystery persists on the whereabouts and health of Kim Jong Un. The leader of North Korea hasn't been seen publicly since April 11 -- driving rumors that he's ailing after a medical procedure, dead, or avoiding the coronavirus. Speculation started after Kim missed the April 15 birthday celebration of his late grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.
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| How Democrats blew up #MeToo Posted: 27 Apr 2020 02:09 PM PDT  The MeToo movement has brought to light a quiet epidemic of sexual harassment and assault going back generations. Movie moguls, famous celebrities, and politicians have seen their careers go up in flames after credible accusations of sexual misconduct. It has been a painful, long-overdue reckoning, and perhaps the dawning of a more just age.Now Democrats are set to blow a hole in the movement with their probable nomination of former Vice President Joe Biden for president. Biden faces a credible accusation of serious sexual assault, but Democrats are plowing ahead regardless. If he actually is nominated, a tremendous amount of the work of MeToo will be undone.Let's review the allegation. Alexandra Tara Reade was a Biden staffer in his office back in the 1990s, and as she detailed on the Katie Halper podcast, in 1993 she says Biden pushed her against a wall, kissed her, and penetrated her with his fingers against her will — that is, the crime of rape. No one else witnessed the incident, and she says she was forced out of Biden's office some months later.In 2019, Reade told the California newspaper The Union that Biden had sexually harassed her on several different occasions others had witnessed, but did not mention the rape. She later told The Intercept's Ryan Grim that she left this part out because of the lack of corroboration. However, Reade did go to the legal aid nonprofit Time's Up in January this year and told them the story, only for them to turn her down, supposedly because Biden was a presidential candidate. She also told Grim that she had told her mother, her brother, and a friend the whole story at the time. Grim spoke with the friend and brother, who confirmed that Reade told them back in 1993, and while her mother has since died, Reade told Grim that her mother had called into Larry King's CNN show to ask for advice about the incident. Sure enough, multiple people later dug up an August 1993 episode of the show in which a woman from San Luis Obispo (a small city where Reade's mother lived) called in. "I'm wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington?" she asked. "My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him." Reade confirmed it was her mother's voice on the call.Then on Monday, two more women went on the record to support Reade's account. Lorraine Sanchez, who worked with Reade in the California state Senate, told Business Insider's Rich McHugh that Reade told her in the mid-1990s that she had been sexually harassed by her former D.C. boss and had been fired when she complained. Reade's former neighbor Lynda LaCasse (a Biden supporter, by the way) says Reade told her about the alleged rape in detail at about the same time. "I remember her saying, here was this person that she was working for and she idolized him," LaCasse told McHugh. "And he kind of put her up against a wall. And he put his hand up her skirt and he put his fingers inside her."All this makes for a strong case that Reade did not make up the story simply to sink Biden's campaign — and why would she make it up? (One study found that false sexual assault allegations are quite rare, at about 2-10 percent of claims.) While her accounts to the press have changed, that is very common among MeToo stories. Victims often struggle to come forward at all out of shame, or fear of backlash or that they won't be believed. Often victims continue relationships with their assailants, or even begin new ones, due to emotional manipulation or economic desperation. Indeed, one woman who says Donald Trump groped her in the 1990s later dated him for a few months, hoping he could land her a good job. Reade herself has said she didn't come forward earlier partly because the ordeal would have been terrible for her young daughter.Furthermore, Biden was already known to have a history of being creepy around women — touching their hair and shoulders, leaning in too close to visibly-uncomfortable women and girls, and so on, often in public with cameras rolling. Politician Lucy Flores wrote in 2014 that when she was the Democratic candidate for Nevada lieutenant governor at an event, Biden smelled her hair and planted "a big slow kiss on the back of my head." She was mortified: "I couldn't move and I couldn't say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me."In short, as Nathan Robinson argues at Current Affairs, while the accusation can never be proved, it is credible. As I wrote back in March 2019, Biden "has MeToo written all over him."Now, one could make an argument that Reade is likely telling the truth, but Biden is still worth nominating. One could say, for instance, that his platform is so good that Democrats will simply have to look the other way this time. But to quote George Orwell, that kind of argument is "too brutal for most people to face" — and it would make Democrats look like staggering hypocrites, given how they have wrapped themselves in the mantle of MeToo.Instead, Democratic partisans have thus far tried to relieve their cognitive dissonance by casting doubt on the story or attacking Reade. In The New York Times, Michelle Goldberg argued that, while the accusation can't be dismissed out of hand, Reade's praise of Vladimir Putin and changing story also cast doubt on her story. Joan Walsh came to the same conclusion in The Nation: "Her allegation against Biden doesn't stand up to close scrutiny." Ben Cohen of The Daily Banter went further along the same lines, saying the allegation was "falling apart" and she was almost certainly lying. (To be fair, all these articles were written before the latest corroborating stories came out, and at time of writing Goldberg at least has expressed dismay over the news.)The posture is quite similar to the one Republicans assumed in response to the accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh back in 2018. They attacked the integrity of accuser Christine Blasey Ford, nitpicked the story, and denied it had happened. It was a shameful episode. However, it's worth noting that what Biden is accused of is, if anything, even worse than the Kavanaugh story. Kavanaugh was 17 years old when he allegedly drunkenly pinned down Ford and tried to take her clothes off. While awful, minors are generally not liable for normal prosecution because they are not fully responsible adults. Biden, by contrast, was a sober, extremely powerful, 50-year-old United States senator when he allegedly committed his crime — and unlike Kavanaugh, he is accused of actually raping Reade.The effective strategy of MeToo is to create a new social norm around sexual misconduct. Since the criminal justice system has so obviously failed to stem the abuse, social sanction can take up the slack. Exposing and punishing powerful people who exploit their position to harass and assault others might make other elites think twice.This progress will be grossly undermined if Democrats choose to look past Biden's allegations for political reasons. Republicans already basically dismiss sexual assault allegations against their co-partisans out of hand; if Democrats do the same for the leader of their party it will do a great deal to move us back to the pre-MeToo past, when far too many people looked the other way at abuses committed by powerful politicians. One cannot create a broad political norm against sexual misconduct if the issue becomes a partisan football for both parties.What's more, this story gives Donald Trump a huge weapon in the general election — either to dismiss the even more numerous accusations against himself, or to attack Biden as the real predator, or both. It was criminally irresponsible of Biden's primary opponents not to attack him vigorously on this issue.However, it is not too late. Though all his opponents have dropped out, Biden has still not been officially nominated. He could still drop out for the good of the party, and arrange for someone else to take up his delegates. Or the Democratic establishment could bull ahead with a damaged, unfit nominee, whose opponent will gleefully exploit their shameless hypocrisy, and dramatically set back the feminist causes they claim to believe in. It's up to them.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Everybody Loves Raymond creator highlights the people who stand behind Trump, literally and awkwardly American optimism is becoming a problem Oxford researchers have reportedly received promising news about their coronavirus vaccine
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| Trump bet on Kim. Now he’s disappeared. Posted: 27 Apr 2020 01:36 PM PDT  With North Korea's paramount leader gone missing, the president's personal diplomacy now seems even more fruitless.
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| Erdogan backs cleric who claims homosexuality brings disease Posted: 27 Apr 2020 01:27 PM PDT |
| Libya's Haftar claims 'mandate from the people' Posted: 27 Apr 2020 01:05 PM PDT  Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar said Monday he had "a popular mandate" to govern the country, declaring a key 2015 political deal over and vowing to press his assault to seize Tripoli. In a speech on his Libya al-Hadath TV channel, he said his self-styled Libyan "army" was "proud to be mandated with the historic task" of leading Libya. "We announce our acceptance of the people's will and mandate and the end of the Skhirat Agreement," he said, referring to a 2015 United Nations-mediated deal that produced the unity government.
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| Libya's Hifter declares UN unity deal 'thing of the past' Posted: 27 Apr 2020 12:55 PM PDT |
| Census says restart to field operations will be in phases Posted: 27 Apr 2020 12:54 PM PDT  The U.S. Census Bureau's return to field operations for the 2020 national head count will take place in phases based on a region's lockdown orders and the availability of protective gear against the new coronavirus, bureau officials told lawmakers late last week. Census Bureau officials told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform last Friday that there would be a phased start to the resumption of field operations on June 1. The spreading virus, and subsequent stay-at-home orders, forced the bureau in mid-March to halt field operations such as hiring and training, reaching out to college students in off-campus housing and dropping off paper questionnaires to households without traditional addresses.
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| Experts Look To Changes In TV, Chinese Military for Kim Jong Un Clues Posted: 27 Apr 2020 12:08 PM PDT Mystery persists on the whereabouts and health of Kim Jong Un. The leader of North Korea hasn't been seen publicly since April 11 -- driving rumors that he's ailing after a medical procedure, dead, or avoiding the coronavirus. Speculation started after Kim missed the April 15 birthday celebration of his late grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.
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| South Korea says it has 'enough intelligence' to say Kim Jong Un is still alive Posted: 27 Apr 2020 11:16 AM PDT  South Korea's Unification Minister said the country has "enough intelligence to confidently say that there are no unusual developments" in North Korea.
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| Israeli court: Palestinians to pay damages to attack victims Posted: 27 Apr 2020 10:51 AM PDT |
| Riots, escapes and fear as coronavirus hits juvenile centers Posted: 27 Apr 2020 10:49 AM PDT |
| 'You are a miracle': Home care is new front in virus fight Posted: 27 Apr 2020 10:17 AM PDT  Ruth Caballero paused outside an unfamiliar apartment door, preparing to meet her new patient. After about three weeks in a hospital, the man was home in his New York apartment but still so weak that sitting up in bed took some persuading. "You made it out of the hospital, so you are a miracle," Caballero told him.
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| Israel marks memorial day under tightened virus restrictions Posted: 27 Apr 2020 10:15 AM PDT  Israel came to a standstill for a minute on Monday evening to mark the beginning of the country's memorial day for fallen soldiers and victims of attacks. The somber day of mourning comes as Israel is beginning to relax stringent measures meant to combat the country's coronavirus outbreak. Typically, bereaved families visit cemeteries and attend memorial ceremonies.
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| Saudi Arabia ends death penalty for minors and flogging Posted: 27 Apr 2020 10:11 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia's decision to curb its use of the death penalty has raised hopes that a young man sentenced to die for taking part in anti-government protests will be spared execution. Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 at the age of 17 for his role in protests inspired by the Arab Spring and received the death penalty. But on Sunday, Saudi officials said they would no longer execute those who committed crimes while they were minors - defined in the kingdom as those under the age of 18. "Instead, the individual will receive a prison sentence of no longer than 10 years in a juvenile detention facility," said Human Rights Commission president Awwad Alawwad in a statement. At the same time, Saudi Arabia said it would also effectively abolish flogging as a punishment for criminals. The reforms reflect a push by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, to modernise the ultra-conservative kingdom, which has long been associated with a fundamentalist strain of Wahhabi Islam. The kingdom has one of the world's highest rates of execution, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking facing the death penalty. Saudi Arabia executed at least 187 people in 2019, according to a tally based on official data, the highest since 1995 when 195 people were put to death. It is not clear if the latest ruling by King Salman bin Abdulaziz will be applied retrospectively, but human rights groups renewed calls for the release of at least 13 Saudi prisoners currently on death row for alleged "terrorist" crimes committed as children. They include Ali Mohammed Baqir Al-Nimr who was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to death along with other teenagers who participated in short-lived political demonstrations in the east of the country that were inspired by the Arab Spring. According to a court judgment, Al-Nimr, while aged 17, "encouraged pro-democracy protests [using] a BlackBerry" mobile phone as members of Saudi's repressed Shia Muslim minority came onto the streets to demand reform and equal rights. He was allegedly tortured and forced to sign a confession while being denied access to a lawyer, human rights groups say. Two other protesters, Dawood al-Marhoun and Abdullah al-Zaher, were also convicted for similar offences, while they were aged 16 and 17, and sentenced to death. Another prisoner, Murtaja Qureiris, now aged 20, is also threatened with the death penalty for crimes he allegedly committed when he was just 10 years old. These included leading a demonstration of 30 children on bicycles and throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station after his brother was killed by Saudi forces in a protest in 2011. Political protests are often considered "terrorist offences" in the Kingdom, which has a harsh record on repressing dissenters, despite recent claims of reform under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned Saudi Arabia's gratuitous use of the death penalty, including for prisoners who have claimed to be chained, beaten and electrocuted before "confessing" to crimes under duress. Among 800 executions since 2015, a total of 185 people were executed in the Kingdom last year, including three men who were children at the time of their offences, according to the campaign group Reprieve. Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, welcomed the move to limit the death penalty but added: "These will be nothing more than empty words as long as child defendants remain on death row. "
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| South Korea says it has 'enough intelligence' to say Kim Jong Un is still alive Posted: 27 Apr 2020 10:11 AM PDT |
| AP PHOTOS: A week of images from the coronavirus pandemic Posted: 27 Apr 2020 09:34 AM PDT  When a COVID-19 patient went into cardiac arrest, doctors and nurses at a New York-area hospital took their hands off him just before hitting the man with an electric shock to restart his heart. A Muslim man offered prayers on a lake shore on the second day of Ramadan in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Kashmiri shrines that would usually be packed during the holy month of Ramadan were deserted after authorities closed them to prevent the spread of the disease.
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| False belief poison cures virus kills over 700 in Iran Posted: 27 Apr 2020 09:24 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus tests cause tailbacks at Kenya-Uganda border Posted: 27 Apr 2020 09:23 AM PDT  Queues stretch 30km at the Kenya-Uganda border after coronavirus tests were imposed for lorry drivers.
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| Trump plots new election strategy: tie Biden to China – and attack them both Posted: 27 Apr 2020 09:20 AM PDT  As the campaign is reshaped by the coronavirus, the president has sought to shift focus away from his erratic responseMeet "Beijing Biden", also known as "Sleepy Joe". According to Donald Trump and his allies, he is both a comrade of "Crazy Bernie" and an establishment creature of Washington, whose coziness with China and long history of verbal stumbles make him unfit for the presidency.This emerging, and at times conflicting, portrait of Joe Biden is part of a recent effort by the Trump campaign to define the presumptive Democratic nominee to its advantage, ahead of a general election that has now been thoroughly reshaped by the coronavirus pandemic.As the death toll from the outbreak has passed 50,000 Americans and mass unemployment reaches historic levels, Trump's main case for re-election – a roaring economy – has evaporated. Instead, he and his team are trying a new strategy: tying his political rival to an old geopolitical foe."China wants Sleepy Joe sooo badly," Trump tweeted on 19 April, adding: "Joe is an easy mark, their DREAM CANDIDATE!" A campaign email earlier this month hammered the point: "I am TOUGH ON CHINA and Sleepy Joe Biden is WEAK ON CHINA."For weeks, Trump has sought to shift the focus for his administration's erratic response to the crisis by harnessing America's growing hostility toward China, where the virus originated. To defend himself against criticism of his handling of the outbreak, Trump has repeatedly pointed to a January decision to impose restrictions on travel from China, which he says impeded the virus's spread in the US.The aggressive push to reframe the election suggests that there is more to be gained by attacking Biden than promoting the president's leadership during the pandemic.A 57-page attack memo, obtained by Politico, advised Republican candidates to blame China when asked whether the spread of the virus is Trump's fault. "Don't defend Trump, other than the China Travel Ban – attack China," it states. Negatively defining a political opponent early in the campaign is a time-honored tactic, employed by Barack Obama against Mitt Romney in 2012 and by George W Bush against John Kerry in 2004. But it is harder to execute against a well-known former vice-president with a long established brand as a folksy pragmatist."This is the time to really set the tone and the narrative," said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign adviser. "Now is the time to sell the message to voters that Joe Biden is not the blue-collar, moderate from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who Barack Obama put on the ticket. This is not the Joe Biden you used to know."Nunberg said China is only one front in the personal assault on Biden. Tying him to his former leftist rival Sanders and questioning his mental fitness are seen as equally damaging themes, he said.Indeed, Trump and his allies continue to gleefully mock Biden's verbal miscues, amplifying them – some deceptively edited or altered – to affirm their charge that the 77-year-old has "lost his fastball". And while Trump encourages Sanders' supporters to join his own campaign, Republicans continue to press the case that Biden, perhaps the most moderate of all the Democrats who ran for president, has embraced the senator's Democratic socialist agenda. "When faced with the choice of President Trump's record of accomplishment or Biden's weak record on China and far-left agenda, the choice for voters is clear," Sarah Matthews, deputy press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a statement.But a China-centered strategy is risky, complicated in no small part by Trump's own rhetoric.Though Trump ran for the White House four years ago on a promise to "get tough" on China, he has struck a different posture as president in pursuit of a "big, beautiful" trade deal with the world's second-largest economy. In recent months, he lavished praise on China's leader, Xi Jinping, and echoed Beijing's assertions that it had the virus under control, even as it spread around the world.The focus also invites deeper scrutiny of Trump's own business dealings in the country. On Friday, Politico reported Trump borrowed tens of millions of dollars from the state-owned Bank of China for his share in a New York property development.Democrats, incredulous that Trump would try to claim the upper hand on China, welcomed it as an opportunity to assail his handling of the crisis.On a press call organized by the Democratic National Committee, the Michigan congresswoman Debbie Dingell accused Trump of failing to hold China accountable and for understating the early threat from the virus."His chaotic federal response delayed mitigation efforts for weeks," Dingell, a Democrat whose state is among the hardest hit in the country, said on Thursday. His actions have caused confusion and misinformation to spread, and it's made it really hard for our governors and local leaders who are trying to do everything they can."The escalating war of words over who is tougher on China was amplified in competing campaign commercials.The Trump's campaign released an ad earlier this month lashing Biden over his past remarks on China and reprising unfounded corruption accusations against the former vice-president and his son.The message was amplified in an ad from America First, a Super Pac supporting Trump, which declares that "for 40 years Joe Biden has been wrong about China." The group also launched a standalone website, BeijingBiden.com, populated with content related to Biden's purported "cozy relationship with China".The Biden campaign responded with a blistering ad of its own. The commercial blames Trump for not holding China to account earlier over its handling of the virus, saying the president "failed to act" as the coronavirus spread. The Democratic Super Pac American Bridge is also running ads on the same theme, featuring footage of Trump praising Xi and saying that the president "gave China his trust".Yet the Trump campaign was targeting Biden long before the race narrowed to a one-on-one contest.As Biden competed for the nomination, the Trump campaign, with its vast war chest, deployed advertising campaigns against him while attempting to foment discord among Democrats. And Trump was ultimately impeached over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to open investigations into Biden and his family.Though Trump rarely pays a political price for taking differing or contradictory positions on an issue, the new push comes as Trump's support in key battleground states wanes. Trump's critics hold out faint hope that the election will bring a political reckoning over what they view as his staggering mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis."All re-election campaigns – every single one of them – are a referendum on the incumbent," said Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a Republican-led effort to defeat Trump."And if Donald Trump had come into this election with peace and prosperity, it would be a very high hill to climb to defeat him. But he's not. He is coming into this with plague and depression."
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| Gove Complains EU Not Respecting Sovereignty in Brexit Talks Posted: 27 Apr 2020 09:14 AM PDT |
| Religious freedom attorneys pick their battles amid pandemic Posted: 27 Apr 2020 09:04 AM PDT  As states grapple with when and how to reopen establishments amid the pandemic, religious freedom remains a legal flashpoint – particularly for the conservative nonprofits that have taken a leading role in representing churches which have challenged stay-home orders. Both camps -- which include legal nonprofits with significant experience in court battles over religious liberty -- see an opportunity to advance their cause by taking on some state and local faith gathering limits ordered during the pandemic. First Liberty Institute President Kelly Shackelford, whose conservative nonprofit has represented churches challenging drive-in service limits in Kentucky and Mississippi, said his group has discouraged other attorneys from taking virus-related cases that may set unwelcome precedents.
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| Gay men abused in Morocco after photos spread online Posted: 27 Apr 2020 09:03 AM PDT  The photos spread after a model told women to download gay apps to see how common homosexuality is.
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| Virus spreads fear through Latin America's unruly prisons Posted: 27 Apr 2020 08:46 AM PDT  The spreading specter of the new coronavirus is shaking Latin America's notoriously overcrowded, unruly prisons, threatening to turn them into infernos. The Puente Alto prison in downtown Santiago, Chile, had the largest of Latin America's largest prison virus outbreaks so far, with more than 300 reported cases. The prison's 1,100 inmates are terrified.
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| North Korean media is reporting that Kim Jong Un is still alive based on a thank-you note sent to workers at a tourist zone Posted: 27 Apr 2020 08:34 AM PDT |
| EU should seal Brexit trade deal because of coronavirus, says Michael Gove Posted: 27 Apr 2020 08:16 AM PDT  The EU should agree a quick trade deal with Britain because of the coronavirus pandemic, Michael Gove said on Monday, as Number 10 demanded EU leaders move to break the Brexit deadlock. Britain rebuffed EU calls to request an extension to the Brexit transition period to buy more time to negotiate a deal and prevent the two sides being forced to trade on WTO terms alone after December 31. "I think the Covid crisis, in some respects, should concentrate the minds of EU negotiators, reinforcing the vital importance of coming to a conclusion," Mr Gove, a cabinet minister, said. "Deadlines concentrate minds," he said, before adding that the history of Brexit proved that, "whenever a deadline was extended the light at the end of the tunnel was replaced with more tunnel." Mr Gove told the Future Relationship with the EU scrutiny committee that it was still possible, despite the virus, to finalise a trade deal by the end of this year, which is when the Brexit transition period ends. Britain will not ask for an extension, he said. The economic impact of coronavirus would make other countries eager to strike trade deals with Britain, he added, which would not be possible during the transition period. Michel Barnier on Friday accused Britain of wasting time in the trade negotiations, which were held online last week because of the virus. He said there was no progress in areas such as fisheries, the level playing field guarantees on tax, labour rights, state aid and the environment and the role of the European Court of Justice. Amid frustrations at the limits of the European Commission's negotiating mandate, Number 10 called on the EU's national leaders to intervene in the talks. "Clearly there will need to be political movement on the EU side to move negotiations forward, particularly on fisheries and level playing field issues, in order to help find a balanced solution which reflects the political realities on both sides," the prime minister's spokesman said. EU sources in Brussels said it was far too early to involve the bloc's heads of state and government, who were, in any case, consumed with dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. The EU wants to preserve access to UK fishing waters under existing conditions and be part of the free trade agreement. Britain insists any fishing agreement must be separate from the trade deal and access be negotiated annually. Britain argues that EU demands for level playing field guarantees are far more stringent than similar commitments made with other non-EU countries and insists on the right to diverge from EU rules after Brexit. Leading European politicians and trade experts have warned that leaving the EU's Single Market and Customs Union without a trade deal will compound the economic damage of the coronavirus. The government says failing to leave on time would prolong uncertainty for business. "We are leaving the transition period on December 31, we will work with the EU to try to do that with a deal," the prime minister's spokesman said, "But nobody should be in any doubt that the transition period is going to end on December 31." Mr Gove described the odds of a successful conclusion to the trade negotiations as "better than two to one", despite admitting only "limited progress" was made in the UK-EU negotiations last week. The Covid-19 outbreak forced the cancellation of two planned rounds of trade talks and the isolation of both sides' chief negotiators and put even more pressure on an already tight deadline. Mr Gove said the UK's no deal operation had been stood down."We don't have any plans to stand up operation Yellowhammer again because we are confident we will secure agreement," he said. Both sides plan a conference to review progress at the end of June. According to the Withdrawal Agreement, the UK has until July to ask for an extension to the Brexit transition period of up to two year. There are further two planned rounds of virtual negotiations before the conference. "I am confident that the EU [...] will want to operate in a constructive way, as we do," Mr Gove said before adding that the Treaty of Rome, the EU's foundation treaty took less than a year. He told MPs the UK would publish the legal text of its vision of the future trade deal in "a matter of weeks". Mr Gove played down earlier suggestions by the British government that it would walk out of talks in June if it felt insufficient progress had been made in the trade negotiations. "I think it is the case that both the UK and the EU will want to ensure the talks will progress," Mr Gove said.
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| As NY COVID-19 deaths drop, Cuomo outlines regional restarts Posted: 27 Apr 2020 07:44 AM PDT  Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined how stay-at-home restrictions could be eased for parts of the state. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that city-run health clinics will soon use a testing procedure that lets people collect samples themselves at a health care worker's direction. Regional officials aiming to re-open their economies next month should make sure testing is up to speed and that there are enough local hospital beds available, Cuomo said.
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| Any aid for Germany's Lufthansa must have strings attached: senior SPD lawmaker Posted: 27 Apr 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Any state support for Germany's largest airline, Lufthansa , must come with strings attached, a senior legislator for the Social Democrats said, suggesting that management should be banned from receiving dividends or bonuses. Carsten Schneider, a senior legislator in the junior party in Germany's governing coalition, was implicitly ruling out earlier calls from a senior figure in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives for the state to take be a silent partner in the airline, whose business has collapsed due to the corona crisis. "State support without gaining a say over the company in question may seem very appealing to some managers, but for the SPD that is out of the question," Schneider told Reuters.
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| Yemen Separatists Declare Self-Rule in Blow to Saudi Arabia Posted: 27 Apr 2020 07:27 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Yemen separatists have declared self-rule in the country's south, dealing a major blow to Saudi Arabia's efforts to end a devastating civil war it fueled in the neighboring nation.A November power-sharing deal between the Saudi-backed administration of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the secessionist Southern Transitional Council supported by the United Arab Emirates had been meant to reconcile onetime allies fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels who control much of the country.But implementation faltered with hostilities flaring again in January, and the declaration of self-rule has the potential to prolong the broader, five-year civil war with the Houthis. Yemen is strategically significant because it lies on a waterway linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden that is a conduit for much of the world's oil.Saudi Arabia's intervention in March 2015 was meant to swiftly restore Hadi's administration after it was ousted by the rebels from the capital, Sana'a. But the fighting has dragged on, creating the world's worst humanitarian crisis with tens of thousands killed and millions left hungry and displaced.Saudi-Backed Yemen Peace Deal Switches Focus to Ending Wider War"The STC's announcement is a significant setback for Saudi Arabia's efforts to broker a reconciliation between the secessionists and the internationally recognized government and to de-escalate the conflict with the Houthis," said Graham Griffiths, associate director at the Control Risks Group Ltd. consulting firm in Dubai."Preventing the STC's announcement from causing the agreement's complete collapse will require even greater levels of commitment from the kingdom at the exact time that it is trying to reduce its involvement in Yemen," Griffiths said. "The re-emergence of these fissures in the south will also hurt efforts to organize talks with the Houthis."Five of Yemen's seven southern provinces rejected the council's move, but that didn't significantly undercut it. The Hadi government wouldn't be able to return to its interim seat in Aden without the consent of the council, which dislodged it in August and now controls the port city.The government condemned the secessionists' declaration as a "coup against the legitimate government," and the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, called on all political actors to "refrain from taking escalatory actions, and put the interests of Yemenis first."The U.A.E. said frustration over the delayed implementation of the power-sharing agreement didn't warrant such unilateral measures."Our confidence in our Saudi brothers' commitment to implementing the Riyadh agreement is absolute," Anwar Gargash, the U.A.E.'s minister of state for foreign affairs, said on Twitter.Saudi-Led Coalition Extends Yemen Cease-fire for a MonthIn a statement late Saturday, the STC accused the Hadi government of refusing to pay the salaries of its forces for several months, and blamed it for the deterioration of basic services. The secessionists turned their guns on the government in 2018. The November agreement was designed to halt the war within a war, and to give the government greater credibility in negotiations with the rebels.Last week, Saudi Arabia extended for a month a cease-fire it declared in Yemen in early April, to allow for diplomacy to progress and help contain the spread of the coronavirus in Yemen, which is extremely ill-equipped to fight the disease.(Updates with UN envoy comment in seventh paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Any aid for Germany's Lufthansa must have strings attached - senior SPD lawmaker Posted: 27 Apr 2020 07:15 AM PDT |
| Brexit talks can still be done within agreed timescale, UK minister says Posted: 27 Apr 2020 06:48 AM PDT |
| Saudi-led coalition rejects south Yemen self-rule declaration Posted: 27 Apr 2020 06:41 AM PDT  The Saudi-led military coalition in war-torn Yemen on Monday rejected a declaration of self-rule by separatists in the country's south and demanded "an end to any escalatory actions". The breakaway declaration made Sunday threatens to reignite a "war within a war" in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country, which is already gripped by what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster. The secessionists' move significantly complicates the country's five-year-old wider conflict, fought by the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen's internationally recognised government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels who control much of the north including the capital Sanaa.
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| Pentagon downplays Iran military satellite as 'tumbling webcam' Posted: 27 Apr 2020 06:30 AM PDT  The head of the US Space Command said the Pentagon believes that Iran's first successful launch of a military satellite into space does not pose any intelligence threat. The Nour satellite placed into orbit on April 22 is classified by the US military as a small 3U Cubesat, three adjoined units each no more than a liter in volume and less than 1.3 kilograms (one pound) each, said General Jay Raymond in a tweet late Sunday. "Iran states it has imaging capabilities -- actually, it's a tumbling webcam in space; unlikely providing intel," he wrote.
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| What you need to know today about the virus outbreak Posted: 27 Apr 2020 06:17 AM PDT  Brazil is emerging as potentially the next big hot spot for the new coronavirus amid President Jair Bolsonaro's insistence that it is just a "little flu." The intensifying outbreak in Brazil — Latin America's biggest country, with 211 million people — has pushed hospitals to the breaking point, leaving victims to die at home. Here are some of AP's top stories Monday on the world's coronavirus pandemic.
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| Pelosi, top House progressive give Biden twin endorsements Posted: 27 Apr 2020 05:42 AM PDT  Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden renewed his party unification efforts Monday with bookend endorsements from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the leader of the House progressive caucus that sometimes battles the speaker from the left. The twin announcements from Pelosi and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal highlight Biden's effort to avoid a repeat of the 2016 presidential election, when tensions between establishment Democrats and the party's progressive flank hobbled Hillary Clinton in her loss to President Donald Trump. Pelosi, a longtime friend of Biden's, is a face of the Democratic establishment and boasts perhaps the widest network across the party's wealthiest donors.
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| 'Kim Jong Un is alive and well,' South Korean official asserts Posted: 27 Apr 2020 05:33 AM PDT  South Korean officials are refuting the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seriously ill or dead as rumors about his health continue to spread.After Kim's unusual absence from the commemoration of his grandfather's birthday on April 15, CNN reported last week that the U.S. is monitoring intelligence that he is "in grave danger after undergoing a previous surgery," although The Washington Post reports that U.S. and South Korean intelligence services "remain skeptical" that he's dead or gravely ill. Over the weekend, satellite imagery showed what's believed to be a train belonging to Kim in Wonsan.South Korea had previously said it's detected "no unusual signs" supporting reports about Kim's health, and Moon Chung-in, foreign policy adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, now tells CNN, "Kim Jong Un is alive and well. He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements have so far been detected."Reuters reports that Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the foreign and unification committee in South Korea's National Assembly, did say Monday, "There has not been any report showing he's making policy decisions as usual since April 11, which leads us to assume that he is either sick or being isolated because of coronavirus concerns." But South Korea's unification minister, Kim Yeon-chul, also said on Sunday, "Our government has enough information-gathering capabilities to say confidently that there is nothing unusual" about Kim's health, The New York Times reports. The Times notes that for a senior South Korean official to be publicly disputing reports about North Korea's leadership is "highly unusual." More stories from theweek.com Everybody Loves Raymond creator highlights the people who stand behind Trump, literally and awkwardly American optimism is becoming a problem Oxford researchers have reportedly received promising news about their coronavirus vaccine
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| Questions over Kim's health highlight intelligence limits Posted: 27 Apr 2020 05:29 AM PDT  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's prolonged public absence has led to rumors of ill health and worries about how it could influence the future of what one analyst calls Northeast Asia's "Achilles' heel," a reference to the North's belligerence and unpredictable nature. The exact state of Kim's health matters because it could determine the stability of the dynastic government in Pyongyang and the security of nuclear weapons that the nation has repeatedly threatened to use on its neighbors and the United States. Gathering intelligence on perhaps the world's most secretive, suspicious and difficult-to-read country is incredibly difficult.
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| Lethargic global response to COVID-19: How the human brain's failure to assess abstract threats cost us dearly Posted: 27 Apr 2020 05:11 AM PDT  More U.S. citizens have confirmed COVID-19 infections than the next five most affected countries combined. Yet as recently as mid-March, President Trump downplayed the gravity of the crisis by falsely claiming the coronavirus was nothing more than seasonal flu, or a Chinese hoax, or a deep state plot designed to damage his reelection bid.The current U.S. administration's mishandling of the coronavirus threat is part of a larger problem in pandemic management. Many government officials, medical experts, scholars and journalists continued to underestimate the dangers of COVID-19, even as the disease upended life in China as early as mid-January. The results of this collective inertia are catastrophic indeed. The U.S., along with Italy, Spain, Iran and the French Alsace, is now the site of humanitarian tragedies, the kind we see erupting in the aftermath of natural disasters or military conflicts. Much of the world appears inadequately prepared to recognize, let alone anticipate, when such threats occur. Times of deep crisis offer the opportunity for new kinds of conversations. As a psychiatrist studying how the human brain responds to fear and stress, and as a historian working on humanitarian responses to disasters, we find surprising points of agreement on the coronavirus pandemic. From a historical and psychological perspective, there are good explanations for why so many among us fail to read the writing on the wall before a catastrophe strikes with full force. It's hard to prepare for sudden changeOur failure to assess risks and make sense of calamitous events is not limited to government politics. It permeates our daily lives and social relationships. Consider the recalcitrant friend, neighbor or family member who shrugged off the seriousness of COVID-19. Think of the disinterested spring breakers on Florida's beaches in mid-March. Even in the eye of a cyclone, societies fail to come together when faced by a looming catastrophe. Perhaps partisanship and tribal thinking hamper our ability to accurately assess risk. Maybe this pandemic is so complex that it overwhelmed existing institutional preparedness. Certainly presidential vanity, dysfunctional loyalism and personality cults, on stark display in the White House, greatly exacerbated the crisis. That said, here's an overarching explanation: It's difficult for humans to adapt to sudden change. That's because we don't know how to tie personal experience to the broader historical context in which we live.Put another way: We ignore history. We don't learn from similar events or direct antecedents. We don't consider worst-case scenarios. We don't plot how a relatively isolated event (such as the early outbreak in China) could trigger a worldwide chain reaction. Two examples: The Great Depression, beginning with the stock market crash of 1929, spiraled into the deepest economic plunge in U.S. history. The 1939 invasion of Poland by the Nazis violently erupted into a world war. A variety of cognitive challenges confronted those living during those times. As during the current pandemic, few saw what was coming, and few correctly assessed the long-term consequences. Distant threats don't spur us to actionThere is also a distinct psychology of threat that often hampers rational and predictive behavior. The human brain isn't well suited to assign emotional valence to what it perceives as abstract dangers. We often don't respond appropriately to distant threats. Instead, we function on a primordial level where close, immediate experiences will trigger a real sense of danger. Someone standing in front of you with a gun is one. An explosion from across the street is another. But spatially or temporally distant events remain intangible. As tribal beings, we seem much less interested in caring for a problem that might not – at least at first – be ours. Consider President Trump's turnaround from stubborn denial to seeming acceptance that COVID-19 could claim up to more than 200,000 American lives. Only after someone close to him contracted the coronavirus and fell into a coma did Trump seem taken aback by the tragedy. As a species, we are unable to grasp abstract events that are outside our personal experience or do not occur in our immediate vicinity. Tragedies occurring in other tribes, such as COVID-19 in China or Europe, appear as vague possibilities. They elicit as much curiosity as a Hollywood movie (think of "Contagion"). To the human mind, these events seem unreal. When a threat is temporarily or spatially distant, we will fail to correctly determine the risk of these looming events. This is true if the disaster occurred 100 years ago (like the Spanish flu) or if it will happen 100 years from now (like global warming). It's true if the threat is 50 days or 5,000 miles away from us. As long as a threat is not in immediate proximity, we will find it difficult to imagine its repercussions. We may fail to take the necessary precautions. Somehow, we must learn not to be stubborn creatures of the here and now.[Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]
Este artículo se vuelve a publicar de The Conversation, un medio digital sin fines de lucro dedicado a la diseminación de la experticia académica. Lee mas:
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| AP-NORC poll: Rising support for mail voting amid pandemic Posted: 27 Apr 2020 05:00 AM PDT  Americans' support for mail-in voting has jumped amid concerns about the safety of polling places during the coronavirus pandemic, but a wide partisan divide suggests President Donald Trump's public campaign against vote by mail may be resonating with his Republican backers. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds Democrats are now much more likely than Republicans to support their state conducting elections exclusively by mail, 47% to 29%. In 2018, about half as many Democrats were in favor, and there was little difference in the views of Democrats and Republicans on the question.
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| Giant Russian church to feature Putin and Stalin mosaics Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:44 AM PDT  A giant Orthodox cathedral adorned with images of President Vladimir Putin and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin is slated to be finished next month to commemorate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. The Cathedral of the Armed Forces in a military theme park outside Moscow features a veritable pantheon of the country's top leaders gracing its lush interior alongside God, the Virgin Mary and saints. Built to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis, the church also glorifies other "feats of arms of the Russian people" including Moscow's takeover of Crimea, the defence ministry said.
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| Saudi-led coalition rejects south Yemen self-rule declaration Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:37 AM PDT The Saudi-led military coalition in war-torn Yemen on Monday rejected a declaration of self-rule by separatists in the country's south and demanded "an end to any escalatory actions". The breakaway declaration made Sunday threatens to reignite a "war within a war" in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country, which is already gripped by what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster. The secessionists' move significantly complicates the country's five-year-old wider conflict, fought by the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen's internationally recognised government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels who control much of the north including the capital Sanaa.
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| Lufthansa should be supported but not nationalised: Bavarian premier Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:18 AM PDT  The German government should support Lufthansa as it tackles the coronavirus crisis but the flagship carrier should not be nationalised, Bavarian State Premier Markus Soeder said on Monday. "Lufthansa should not be nationalised," said Soeder - head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).
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| Merkel faces growing criticism over German virus strategy Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:01 AM PDT  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been praised at home and abroad for her reaction to the coronavirus crisis, but as voices of discontent grow louder, support for the government's strategy could be on the wane. The restrictions -- but also greater testing capacities -- have seen Germany keep its mortality rate far lower than that of its European neighbours. The restrictions have also met with public approval.
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