| Coronavirus in Africa: Contained or unrecorded? Posted: 19 May 2020 05:16 PM PDT  The continent has had less than 100,000 cases so far, but could be in for a prolonged outbreak.
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| Trump Ramps Up His Battle With World Health Organization Posted: 19 May 2020 03:53 PM PDT  President Trump threatened late Monday to permanently stop funding the World Health Organization and "reconsider" U.S. membership in the group if it does not "commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days."Trump didn't specify what changes he is seeking, but in a scathing four-page letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted to Twitter shortly before 11 p.m., the president repeated many of the accusations he has leveled in recent weeks against the United Nations agency and its response to the Covid-19 pandemic. He alleged that the WHO ignored early reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan, China; repeated inaccurate or misleading information from the Chinese government while failing to share other information; and failed to press China for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus. Trump again criticized what he called the WHO's "alarming lack of independence" from Beijing."It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world," Trump wrote. "The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China."The background: Trump had initially praised China's response to the pandemic, but as the U.S. death toll rose and criticism of his administration's own response mounted, he shifted to attacking both WHO and Beijing. Last month, Trump suspended U.S. payments to WHO for 60 days, sparking criticism and an outpouring of international statements supporting the organization and warning of the risks of cutting its funding in the midst of a pandemic. The United States is the largest source of funding for the agency. About $400 million in annual funds to WHO have been halted since last month, according to The Washington Post.A measure adopted at a virtual gathering of WHO member nations this week calls for the organization to undertake an independent review of its pandemic response at the "earliest appropriate moment."The responses: The WHO said in a statement that it was "considering the contents" of Trump's letter. A Chinese official, meanwhile, said the Trump administration was violating its international obligations and "trying to mislead the public, smear China and shift blame for its own incompetent response," according to the Post.Medical journal The Lancet knocked Trump for what it said was a "factually incorrect" statement in his letter. Trump had written that WHO had ignored credible reports, including from The Lancet, in December about the virus spreading in Wuhan, China. The Lancet said it "published no report in December, 2019, referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China." Its first reports on the virus were published January 24, it said."The allegations levelled against WHO in President Trump's letter are serious and damaging to efforts to strengthen international cooperation to control this pandemic," The Lancet statement said. "It is essential that any review of the global response is based on a factually accurate account of what took place in December and January."Why it matters: Trump's latest threat is likely to heighten concerns that the United States is ceding its leadership role and allowing China to enhance its global standing — criticisms that the administration strongly rejects. China has pledged an additional $30 billion to the WHO. Chinese President Xi Jinping this week called on countries to rally behind the WHO and pledged $2 billion to fight the pandemic around the world, a move U.S. officials saw as a further attempt to fend off accountability for China's coronavirus response.Like what you're reading? Sign up for our free newsletter.
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| WHO summit devolves into U.S.-China proxy battle Posted: 19 May 2020 03:49 PM PDT  China's President Xi Jinping attempts to play good cop to Trump's bad cop in latest skirmish for global influence.
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| UN official warns of escalating Libyan war citing foreigners Posted: 19 May 2020 03:41 PM PDT  The top U.N. official in Libya warned Tuesday that the war in the North African country will "intensify, broaden and deepen" because of increasing foreign intervention and the influx of weapons, military equipment and mercenaries to both sides. Acting U.N. special envoy Stephanie Williams said the escalation will have "devastating consequences for the Libyan people" who are "getting lost in the mix, their voices crowded out." Williams' video briefing to the council came a day after forces allied with Libya's U.N.-supported government wrested control of a key military base on the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli.
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| Analysis: Trump flouts the experts, even in own government Posted: 19 May 2020 02:39 PM PDT  When the nation's top infectious disease doctor warned it could be risky for schools to open this fall, President Donald Trump said that was unacceptable. The coronavirus pandemic has thrown into stark relief the extent of Trump's disregard for scientific and medical expertise, even when the safety of millions of Americans or his own personal health is on the line. In doing so, Trump appears to be disregarding what has long been considered the special responsibility of the American president to set an example for the nation, unconcerned that taking a personal risk could lead millions of others looking to the White House for guidance to do the same.
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| Trump allies lining up doctors to prescribe rapid reopening Posted: 19 May 2020 02:28 PM PDT  Republican political operatives are recruiting "extremely pro-Trump" doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy. CNP Action is part of the Save Our Country Coalition, an alliance of conservative think tanks and political committees formed in late April to end state lockdowns implemented in response to the pandemic.
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| Trump wants to cut WHO funding to wage a PR war with China Posted: 19 May 2020 02:17 PM PDT |
| Cousin of Syria's Assad says state confiscates his assets Posted: 19 May 2020 02:00 PM PDT |
| US Navy issues new guidelines after close Iran encounters Posted: 19 May 2020 01:05 PM PDT  The U.S. Navy warned Tuesday it will take "lawful defensive measures" against vessels in the Mideast that come within 100 meters (yards) of its warships, offering specific guidelines after a recent close encounter with Iranian vessels in the Persian Gulf. Defensive measures have typically included turning a ship away from the approaching vessel, sounding its horn, shooting off flares and ultimately firing warning shots to force the vessel away. "Our ships are conducting routine operations in international waters wherever international law allows and do not seek conflict," said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a Bahrain-based 5th Fleet spokeswoman.
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| 'Tortured Zimbabwe abductees' may face prosecution Posted: 19 May 2020 10:58 AM PDT  Opposition activists, including an MP, say they were beaten and forced to drink urine by state agents.
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| Aiming for novelty in coronavirus coverage, journalists end up sensationalizing the trivial and untrue Posted: 19 May 2020 10:43 AM PDT  For centuries, what has made news valuable and news organizations profitable has been the speed at which journalists collect and disseminate information. This is useful for both commerce and public service. But the rush for novelty can prioritize sensationalism over depth, and elevate the newest tidbit of information over more important reporting.Examples of this include reporting on such unimportant and inconsequential tweets by President Donald Trump as his bizarre accusation that a morning cable TV host murdered somebody, or his pride in the ratings for his pandemic press conferences.When novelty replaces context, the ironic result is a less-informed but more up-to-date public. Media easy to exploitThis is particularly true in times of long-running historical events, such as the current pandemic. When a clear beginning, middle and resolution are not discernible, the demand for any morsel of new information can confuse, rather than clarify, the story. Journalists rushing to amplify any small update can mistakenly inflate its importance with sensational headlines or hyperbolic broadcast framing. For example: the widespread discussion of hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure – it wasn't – or the celebrated roll-out of the CDC's guidelines for a safe reopening of the economy, now appear, in retrospect, to be relatively insignificant, especially because numerous states are reopening without following the CDC's recommended metrics. Faded in memory now are things like the announcement of Google's tracking website, and the national drive-through testing plan, both of which never materialized but resulted in major headlines and widespread discussion in the wake of their announcement.Traditionally, editorial news assessment of presidential assertions was simple: if the president said something, it was, by definition, newsworthy. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how journalism's traditional bias for novelty can result in front-page, top-of-the-broadcast news stories that are provably inaccurate, and even occasionally fictional. The tendency of journalists to inflate the value of certain new information makes the media manipulable and easy to exploit. President Trump realizes this. That's why he tweets so much. He understands the content of any tweet is less important than its immediacy, and how his tweets pressure journalists to amplify unimportant messages on social media. He knows that what he actually says in a tweet is less important than that there's a new tweet – and how such newness motivates journalists to redirect focus from ongoing problems that lack new developments to the tweet itself. Lost in this confusing swirl is repetition's power. News organizations find little value in republishing, or rebroadcasting, news everyone already knows. The goal for journalists has long been known as "advancing the story." But sometimes the biggest story does not advance as quickly as journalists might hope. It is in these moments of seeming stasis that journalistic repetition can become more powerful and serve as a way to hold government accountable. Here's one example: The states around the country that have moved to reopen their economies without achieving benchmarks proposed by the CDC. There are indications in Texas, for example, that this is resulting in increased spread of COVID-19. This isn't a one-day story; nor is the news simply the opening of these states. The White House's own "Opening Up America Again" guidelines are public, easily accessed and could be continually referenced in stories about safely reopening the economy. Doing so would provide important context for the public about national and state leadership. If the guidelines turn out to be wrong, that would offer important information about the CDC and the White House. If they turn out to be correct, decisions to deviate from them will similarly provide valuable information to the citizenry. Repetition, journalism and civic responsibilityAmerican journalism enjoys constitutional protection precisely because the founders recognized its educational role in civic governance.Yet journalism's avoidance of repetition can be viewed as detrimental to this public education mandate. That the president has provably misled the media and the public with such regularity during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be "old news" at this point. The imperative for "new" news deters reminders in the lead paragraphs in newspaper articles, or at the top of news broadcasts, that much of what the president has said and tweeted about the pandemic has been inaccurate and disproven. Though journalism scholarship contains few content analyses of repetition in long-running news stories, broadcast history provides evidence of its value. ABC's lucrative "Nightline" franchise was born out of a series of nightly updates – often about the lack of progress – during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980. Daily coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial in 1994-1995 raised cable TV news ratings and profits to record levels and sparked national conversations about race, celebrity and the justice system. And now the COVID-19 crisis has catapulted ABC News' "World News Tonight" to the top spot in the national TV ratings for weeks. Viewership data proves the U.S. public is avidly following the story.Journalists, however, seem to be tiring of it. Like body counts in Vietnam, days the hostages remained in Tehran or the number of positive COVID-19 tests, reciting dry numbers requires little effort. For journalists, repeating data provided by governmental authorities can eventually become monotonous. As MSNBC's Chris Hayes recently told the New Yorker, describing his team's efforts covering the crisis, "there's probably some fatigue setting in." Reporting something different now, Hayes added, was, "in a weird way, liberating, because it means you don't feel beaten into the ground by repetition."Using the word "liberating" implies that Hayes, and other journalists, are feeling entrapped. Yet, rather than complain, they might consider this a professional challenge. When body counts bored reporters in the Vietnam War, they went into the field to add irony, wit and emotion to their reports. Journalists like Peter Arnett, Jack Laurence and Morley Safer composed distinctive and powerful stories capturing the mood and atmosphere in Vietnam. Many unexplored angles on the COVID-19 epidemic await creative treatment. But they require imagination, skill and the investment of time, patience and money to produce. News isn't always what's new. Sometimes it's the barely perceptible moments that tired journalists might overlook. Failure to capture and communicate those stories, because they might not contain the most recent morsel of information, could have political consequences today, and could misinform historians portraying this pandemic tomorrow.[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation's newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Coronavirus: News media sounded the alarm for months – but few listened * Claims of ideological bias among the media may be overblownMichael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Sudan 'must pay' US East African embassy attack victims Posted: 19 May 2020 10:31 AM PDT  The US Supreme Court rules in favour of damages over the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
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| Mike Pompeo Has Poisoned the State Department Posted: 19 May 2020 10:30 AM PDT |
| Boy Scout councils under pressure to share sex abuse costs Posted: 19 May 2020 10:13 AM PDT  Nine sex abuse lawsuits were filed Tuesday in New York against three Boy Scout local councils, signaling an escalation of efforts to pressure councils nationwide to pay a big share of an eventual settlement in the Scouts' bankruptcy proceedings. The lawsuits were filed shortly after an easing of coronavirus lockdown rules enabled courts in some parts of New York to resume the handling of civil cases. One of the lawyers coordinating the filing, Mike Pfau, said his Seattle-based firm expects to file scores more lawsuits in other parts of New York, as well as in New Jersey and California, after full reopening of courts there.
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| UN chief recommends scaled-back UN meeting of world leaders Posted: 19 May 2020 10:03 AM PDT  Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is recommending that the annual gathering of world leaders in late September, which was supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, be dramatically scaled back because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Guterres suggested in a letter to the president of the General Assembly that heads of state and government deliver prerecorded messages instead, with only one New York-based diplomat from each of the 193 U.N. member nations present in the General Assembly Hall.
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| Coronavirus: South Sudan's VP Riek Machar contracts Covid-19 Posted: 19 May 2020 09:54 AM PDT  Riek Machar, who was part of a task force to fight the pandemic, has tested positive for coronavirus.
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| UN agency warns pandemic could kill 1 in 8 museums worldwide Posted: 19 May 2020 09:36 AM PDT  Studies by UNESCO and the International Council of Museums show 90% of the planet's museums, some 85,000 institutions, have had to shut at least temporarily. "It is alarming data that we are giving," Ernesto Ottone, Assistant Director General for Culture at UNESCO said in an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday. A once-in-a-lifetime exhibit bringing together fragile paintings by Flemish master Jan van Eyck had barely opened in Ghent, Belgium, when it was abruptly canceled.
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| Austria says EU 'frugals' to present alternative to Franco-German fund plan Posted: 19 May 2020 09:25 AM PDT |
| U.N. envoy pushes for end to foreign fueling of Libya conflict Posted: 19 May 2020 09:09 AM PDT |
| 'Disgraceful': US accused of using coronavirus to promote 'pro-life' agenda in letter telling UN abortion is not 'essential' Posted: 19 May 2020 08:48 AM PDT  A US foreign aid agency has warned the United Nations to stop "promoting" abortion and has denied that sexual and reproductive health is "essential" care.In a letter to UN secretary-general António Guterres, the acting administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said that the UN should not use the coronavirus pandemic "as an opportunity to advance access to abortion as an 'essential service'" during the crisis.
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| Putin pledges aid to Russia's Dagestan region hit by coronavirus 'catastrophe' Posted: 19 May 2020 08:31 AM PDT  Coronavirus has brought "catastrophe" to one of Russia's most populated regions, forcing President Vladimir Putin to pledge unprecedented aid. The outbreak in the mountainous region of Dagestan, where Covid-19 has reportedly claimed up to several hundred lives, has shed light on the chronic under-funding of Russian provincial hospitals where intensive care units were overrun in a matter of days. Health care workers are said to be dying in thier droves because of a lack of personal protective equipment. One week after he announced the end to nationwide coronavirus lockdown, Mr Putin acknowledged that the outbreak in Dagestan is so dire that it needs "an emergency response". He pledged funds and aid from the military. As emergency responders were setting off for Dagestan on Tuesday, Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian prime minister, was discharged from hospital. He had spent three weeks there with coronavirus. Nearly 700 people have died of pneumonia in Dagestan, according to local health officials. But just 32 of the fatalities have been attributed to coronavirus in the outbreak described by the region's top Muslim cleric as a "catastrophe". Scientists have cast doubt on Russia's low death count, which stood yesterday at 2,837. They point to the country's conservative approach to attributing fatalities to Covid-19, and they suspect under-reporting.
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| Dig near Jerusalem's Western Wall yields 'puzzling' chambers Posted: 19 May 2020 08:27 AM PDT  Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday exhibited a recently uncovered, unusual series of 2,000-year-old chambers carved out of the bedrock beneath the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority's excavations are uncovering new sections of a sprawling network of ancient subterranean passageways running alongside a contested Jerusalem holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, while the compound is the third-holiest site in Islam.
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| China outplayed the world on the day it was meant to face a reckoning over its coronavirus response Posted: 19 May 2020 08:27 AM PDT  On the day WHO was meant to hold China to account over COVID-19, Xi Jinping poured more money into the agency and pledged to give medical help.
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| Ecuador to close embassies, state firms over virus crisis Posted: 19 May 2020 08:06 AM PDT  Ecuador said Tuesday it is closing several embassies and state enterprises to save money amid an economic crisis provoked by the coronavirus pandemic. "We will close ... embassies and diplomatic offices," President Lenin Moreno said in a speech on television and radio as he presented a plan to save more than $4 billion. Ambassadors to Iran, Nicaragua, Malaysia and the Andean Parliament will be recalled, leaving those diplomatic missions in the hands of lower-ranking officials.
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| Speech advocate Annie Glenn, astronaut's wife, dies at 100 Posted: 19 May 2020 07:59 AM PDT  Annie Glenn, who was thrust into the spotlight in 1962 when her husband became the first American to orbit the Earth, but who shied away from the media attention because of a severe stutter that later moved her to advocate for people with speech disorders, died Tuesday. Glenn died of complications from COVID-19 at a nursing home near St. Paul, Minnesota, where she had moved in recent years to be near her daughter, said Hank Wilson, a spokesman for the Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University. NASA later announced her death.
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| Sri Lanka threatens to leave int'l organizations over rights Posted: 19 May 2020 07:57 AM PDT |
| Russia’s Su-57 Stealth Fighter Could Soon Have a Robot in the Cockpit Posted: 19 May 2020 07:48 AM PDT  Or at least that's what Russia's President Vladimir Putin wants you to think.
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| Trump urges Senate Republicans to 'be tough' on Democrats Posted: 19 May 2020 07:47 AM PDT  Behind closed doors, Trump was unscripted and freewheeling with the 53 GOP senators. Despite House passage of a $3 trillion pandemic aid package, Republicans insisted they'll wait until June to consider whether more help is necessary.
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| UK's post-Brexit tariff plan shows need for free trade deals - UK car body Posted: 19 May 2020 07:37 AM PDT |
| Evangelist who built global ministry dies in Atlanta at 74 Posted: 19 May 2020 07:26 AM PDT |
| Study sees British defense sector hurting after Brexit Posted: 19 May 2020 07:12 AM PDT |
| UK tells EU it will take 'any measures necessary' to protect fishing waters Posted: 19 May 2020 07:10 AM PDT  British negotiators have told the European Union that the Royal Navy could board EU fishing boats if they breach the terms of a post-Brexit fishing deal. UK officials have said Britain will take any measures necessary to protect its fishing waters, negotiating documents published by the Government revealed on Tuesday. Britain has demanded that EU boats, which currently have the automatic right to fish in UK waters, apply for a licence and that the bloc provides the UK with a list of all vessels eligible to enter British fisheries "in good time". "Access to our waters will be on our terms," Michael Gove said in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
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| Appeals court OKs June 23 NY Democratic presidential primary Posted: 19 May 2020 07:06 AM PDT  New York's Democratic Party leadership gave up trying to cancel the state's June 23 presidential primary Tuesday after an appeals court rejected arguments that holding it during the coronavirus pandemic would endanger public safety. Douglas A. Kellner, co-chair of the State Board of Elections, said he and the board's commissioner would not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after the ruling by the three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs said scrapping the primary would have been "a whole lot safer."
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| 'This is war': Virus charges beyond Latin American hot spots Posted: 19 May 2020 06:57 AM PDT  Beyond the hot spots of Brazil and Mexico, the coronavirus is threatening to overwhelm Latin American cities large and small in an alarming sign that the pandemic may be only at the start of its destructive march through the region. More than 90% of intensive care beds were full last week in Chile's capital, Santiago, whose main cemetery dug 1,000 emergency graves to prepare for a wave of deaths. In Lima, Peru, patients took up 80% of intensive care beds as of Friday.
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| What you need to know today about the virus outbreak Posted: 19 May 2020 06:52 AM PDT  The White House is defending President Donald Trump's decision to take a malaria drug he's been promoting as a treatment for the coronavirus, despite warnings from his own government that it should only be administered for COVID-19 in a hospital or research setting due to potentially fatal side effects. The president has been drawing criticism from Democratic leaders and some health experts after saying he's been taking hydroxychloroquine and a zinc supplement daily for a week and a half, after two White House staffers tested positive for the coronavirus. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday that "tens of millions of people around the world have used this drug for other purposes," including malaria prophylaxis, and urged all patients to consult with their doctors.
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| Russian PM recovers from virus as infection rates slow Posted: 19 May 2020 06:38 AM PDT  Russia's Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin returned to his duties on Tuesday after recovering from the coronavirus, as officials said the crisis was easing despite total infections approaching 300,000. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree reinstating Mishustin as the head of government, nearly three weeks after the prime minister announced on television he had tested positive for coronavirus. After resuming his full duties, Mishustin appeared with other senior officials in a televised video-conference with Putin, who congratulated him on beating the virus.
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| Pandemic will alter Communion rituals for many US Christians Posted: 19 May 2020 06:15 AM PDT  Holy Communion will have a different look when in-person worship services resume at the end of May in the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee: The wafers signifying the body of Christ will be placed in the hands of parishioners by priests and deacons wearing face masks and safety glasses. Similarly striking changes in Communion will take place at Catholic and Protestant churches across the United States over coming weeks as restrictions on large gatherings –- imposed because of the coronavirus outbreak –- are gradually eased. In some cases, clergy will be instructed to use hand sanitizer before commencing with the sacrament.
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| Lear Joins United Nations Global Compact Initiative Posted: 19 May 2020 06:00 AM PDT  Lear Corporation (NYSE: LEA), a global automotive technology leader in Seating and E-Systems, has joined the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, the world's largest corporate responsibility initiative. The announcement further demonstrates Lear's commitment as a responsible corporate citizen that innovates and creates products that ensure comfort, well-being, convenience and safety.
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| UK tells the EU to budge on free trade deal - Gove says Posted: 19 May 2020 05:19 AM PDT |
| US seeks to change the rules for mining the Moon Posted: 19 May 2020 05:16 AM PDT  Private industries have helped drop the cost of launching rockets, satellites and other equipment into space to historic lows. That has boosted interest in developing space – both for mining raw materials such as silicon for solar panels and oxygen for rocket fuel, as well as potentially relocating polluting industries off the Earth. But the rules are not clear about who would profit if, for instance, a U.S. company like SpaceX colonized Mars or established a Moon base.At the moment, no company – or nation – is yet ready to claim or take advantage of private property in space. But the US$350 billion space industry could change quickly. Several companies are already planning to explore the Moon to find raw materials like water; Helium-3, which is potentially useful in fusion nuclear reactors; and rare earth elements, which are invaluable for manufacturing electronics. What they might find, and how easy the material is to bring back to Earth, remains to be seen.Anticipating additional commercial interest, the Trump administration has created new rules through an executive order following a 2015 law change for how those companies might profit from operations on the Moon, asteroids and other planets. Those rules conflict with a longstanding international treaty the U.S. has generally followed but never formally joined. The administration also is planning to encourage other nations to adopt this new U.S. perspective on space mining.As a scholar of space law and policy – and a proud sci-fi nerd – I believe the international community could find new ways to peacefully govern space from examples here on our planet, including deep seabed mining and Antarctica. Who owns space?In general, regions of Earth beyond any one nation's control – like the high seas, the atmosphere and Antarctica – have been viewed by the international community as globally shared resources. That principle applied to space, too, until President Donald Trump's executive order specifically rejected the idea that space was any sort of "global commons" shared among all nations and peoples of the Earth.This step is the latest in a series of decisions by U.S. presidents over the last 40 years that have signaled the country's decreasing willingness to share these types of resources, especially through an international body like the United Nations. That is one reason why the U.S. has not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, for example, which was agreed to in 1982 and took effect in 1994.A similar story played out regarding the Moon. Moon Treaty and international space lawOver the decades, the U.S. has sought to use its space policy in various ways. President John F. Kennedy, for example, considered turning the Apollo Moon-landing program into a joint U.S.-Soviet mission to promote peace between the superpowers.Lyndon Johnson's administration similarly saw space as a shared region, and in 1967 signed the Outer Space Treaty, which proclaimed that space was the "province of all mankind." However, that treaty didn't say anything about mining on the Moon – so when the U.S. landed there in 1969, the international community called for regulations.The U.N.'s eventual Moon Treaty declared the Moon the "common heritage of mankind," and sought shared international control over resources found there.However, that plan wasn't very popular among advocates for a more commercial final frontier. In the U.S., a nonprofit group in favor of space colonization opposed the treaty, fearing it would discourage private investment. The treaty failed ratification in the U.S. Senate. Only 18 nations have, in fact, ratified the Moon Treaty among them Mexico and Australia, none of them major space-faring powers. But even though many countries seem to agree that the Moon Treaty isn't the right way to handle lunar property rights, that doesn't mean they agree on what they actually should do. Finding profit in spaceAs space launches got cheaper, the U.S. SPACE Act, passed in 2015, gave U.S. companies the right to mine materials from asteroids for profit. That conflicts with the shared-resources view of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.Since then, there have been further political efforts to remove perceived legal hurtles to space mining. In 2017, a Republican congressman sought to formalize the U.S. rejection of space as any sort of common property, proposing a bill that said, "outer space shall not be considered a global commons." That bill died, but it was reintroduced in 2019 and is currently awaiting action in the House. A new space race?Allowing private control of space resources could launch a new space race, in which wealthy companies, likely from developed countries, could take control of crucial resources – like ice on the Moon, which could supply water for people or to fuel rockets – and profit handsomely.That, in turn, would increase the likelihood of a military arms race, with the U.S., Russia and China developing weapons to defend their citizens' space assets. Applying lessons from the deep, and AntarcticaIn finding common ground, and charting a path forward, it is useful to consider lessons from other frontiers. The Moon Treaty tried to set up a system for sharing the benefits of Moon mining similar to how an existing system handled mining the deep sea. The International Seabed Authority is a U.N. body that lets nations and private firms develop resources from the deep seabed so long as they share the proceeds, particularly with landlocked developing nations. It is recognized by more than 160 nations, though the U.S. is a notable holdout. Environmental groups have criticized the Authority for not doing enough to safeguard fragile marine environments, but the overall model of sharing the wealth from a collective resource could still be useful. For instance, the Authority's participants are working on a new code of ethics for deep-sea mining that would emphasize environmental sustainability. Those provisions could be mirrored on other worlds.Similarly, the global management of Antarctica has useful parallels with the Moon. The entire continent is governed by a treaty that has avoided conflict since 1959 by freezing national territorial claims and barring military and commercial activities. Instead, the continent is reserved for "peaceful purposes" and "scientific investigation."A similar approach could become the core of a second attempt at a Moon Treaty, and could even accommodate a provision for commercial activity along the lines of the deep-sea mining rules. In so doing, we must also learn what has not worked in the past, such as ignoring the interests of the private sector and the developing world. Advocates are correct that defining property rights is an important precursor, but it is not a binary choice between a "global commons" or private property, rather there are a universe of rights that deserve consideration and that could provide a proper foundation for sustainable development.But coming to an international agreement would take time, energy and a widespread willingness to view resources as common assets that should be collectively governed. All those ingredients are in short supply in a world where many countries are becoming more isolationist.For the immediate future, other countries may or may not follow the U.S. lead, and its influence, toward privatizing space. Japan seems interested, as does Luxembourg, but China and Russia are concerned about their national security, and the European Space Agency is more inclined toward working collectively. Without better coordination, it seems likely that eventually peaceful, sustainable development of off-world resources will give way to competing claims, despite readily available examples of how to avoid conflict.[Like what you've read? Want more? Sign up for The Conversation's daily newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Mining the moon for rocket fuel to get us to Mars * Who owns the moon? A space lawyer answersScott Shackelford is a principal investigator on grants from the Hewlett Foundation, Indiana Economic Development Corporation, and the Microsoft Corporation supporting both the Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance and the Indiana University Cybersecurity Clinic. He is also the co-recipient of funding from the Canadian Academy of Social Sciences related to managing orbital debris.
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| Etihad makes 1st known commercial flight between UAE, Israel Posted: 19 May 2020 04:32 AM PDT  An unmarked Etihad Airways cargo plane flew aid to help the Palestinians fight the coronavirus pandemic from the capital of the United Arab Emirates into Israel on Tuesday, marking the first known direct commercial flight between the two nations. The UAE, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai on the Arabian Peninsula, has no diplomatic ties to Israel over its occupation of land wanted by the Palestinians for a future state, like all Arab nations except Egypt and Jordan.
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| 1 Michigan dam breached, another at risk amid Midwest floods Posted: 19 May 2020 03:56 AM PDT  People living along two lakes and a river in mid-Michigan rushed to evacuate Tuesday after the breach of a dam following days of heavy flooding across parts of the Midwest. Two schools were opened for evacuees in the Midland area, about 140 miles north of Detroit, after the breach of Edenville Dam, which holds back Wixom Lake. Red Cross worker Tom Restgate, who had been helping residents of the area seek shelter from the threat of rising waters, said he received an alert over his cellphone that "the dam ... it breached."
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| The Brexit boost: Government to axe tariffs on 60 per cent of global imports next year Posted: 19 May 2020 03:32 AM PDT  The Government has said it will eliminate tariffs on 60 per cent of global imports, including white goods and Christmas trees, after the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec 31. A new UK tariff will replace the EU-wide tariff, which is set for the bloc as a whole, from Jan 1 2021. The announcement is a signal to the EU that the transition period will not be extended, despite trade negotiations being deadlocked and slowed by coronavirus. Zero tariffs will be introduced on dishwashers, freezers, tampons, paints, screwdrivers, mirrors, scissors and shears, padlocks, some cooking products like yeast and bay leaves and Christmas trees. The EU had tariffs ranging from 2.7 per cent to 8 per cent for such products. Tariffs are being maintained in the automotive, agricultural and fishing sector to protect domestic industry from foreign competition, as well as on lamb, beef, and poultry and on cars and the vast majority of ceramics. A zero tariff will be introduced on products used in UK production, such as screws and bolts and copper tubes.
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| WHO expects to have "more clarity" on Trump letter later in day Posted: 19 May 2020 02:46 AM PDT |
| Iran sentences couple to death over money laundering Posted: 19 May 2020 02:02 AM PDT |
| Syria's warring parties agree to Geneva talks -U.N. envoy Posted: 19 May 2020 01:56 AM PDT |
| Iraq military: Rocket hit Baghdad Green Zone, minor damages Posted: 19 May 2020 01:03 AM PDT |
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