| Mexico starts campaign urging employers to hire refugees Posted: 10 Sep 2020 05:29 PM PDT |
| PRESS DIGEST- Financial Times - Sept. 11 Posted: 10 Sep 2020 05:14 PM PDT |
| Coronavirus lockdowns put barely a blip in climate change, emissions and global warming: UN Posted: 10 Sep 2020 05:14 PM PDT  COVID-19 lockdowns may have tanked economies, but they inflicted nary a nick on climate change, a new United Nations report says. A slight sputter notwithstanding while entire societies were locked down, global temperatures are continuing to trend upward and could pass what's considered a milestone tipping point within a decade, the UN said. With greenhouse gas concentrations at record levels and increasing in Earth's atmosphere and emissions heading back up toward pre-pandemic levels, the world is not on track to keep warming to a minimum as it needs to be, the World Meteorological Association said in a new report released Wednesday.
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| PRESS DIGEST-British Business - Sept 11 Posted: 10 Sep 2020 05:10 PM PDT |
| Russia, China hackers targeting US vote, Microsoft warns Posted: 10 Sep 2020 05:03 PM PDT  Microsoft said Thursday it thwarted recent cyberattacks from China, Russia and Iran targeting both Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns, as technology giants scrambled to protect election security less than two months ahead of the US vote.
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| Africa's week in pictures: 4-10 September 2020 Posted: 10 Sep 2020 04:27 PM PDT  A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.
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| George Bizos obituary: Remembering Mandela's gentle but fierce lawyer Posted: 10 Sep 2020 04:07 PM PDT  The South African champion of human rights remained active and outspoken into his tenth decade.
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| UN condemns killing of LGBT activist in northern Mexico, Posted: 10 Sep 2020 03:45 PM PDT |
| Climate change largely missing from campaign as fires rage Posted: 10 Sep 2020 03:27 PM PDT  Historic fires are raging across the western United States ahead of what scientists say is the typical peak of wildfire season. When he talks about California, where fires have killed at least a dozen people and threatened thousands of homes, it's mostly to blast the state's Democratic leaders. "The Biden campaign understands that a full embrace of an aggressive climate change agenda could create problems for them in Upper Midwest," said Dan Schnur, who served as an adviser to former California Gov. Pete Wilson and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
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| Pentagon rescinding order to shutter Stars and Stripes paper Posted: 10 Sep 2020 03:10 PM PDT  The Defense Department is rescinding its order to shut down the military's independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, in the wake of a tweet late last week by President Donald Trump vowing to continue funding the paper. In an email to Stripes' publisher Max Lederer, Army Col. Paul Haverstick said the paper does not have to submit a plan to close. Haverstick, acting director of the Pentagon's Defense Media Activity, said a formal memo is being drafted that will rescind the order to halt publication by Sept. 30, and dissolve the organization by the end of January.
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| UNICEF chief urges firms to fight COVID-19 with public sector partners Posted: 10 Sep 2020 02:51 PM PDT |
| Judges: Trump can't exclude people from district drawings Posted: 10 Sep 2020 02:48 PM PDT  Saying the president had exceeded his authority, a panel of three federal judges on Thursday blocked an order from President Donald Trump that tried to exclude people in the country illegally from being counted when congressional districts are redrawn. The federal judges in New York, in granting an injunction, said the presidential order issued in late July was unlawful. The judges prohibited Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose agency oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, from excluding people in the country illegally when handing in 2020 census figures used to calculate how many congressional seats each state gets.
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| Global Neurorehabilitation Devices Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 02:47 PM PDT |
| Man accused of making Zoom lecture bomb threat free on bond Posted: 10 Sep 2020 01:53 PM PDT |
| Microsoft says hackers from Russia, China, and Iran have 'stepped up their efforts' to target the 2020 election Posted: 10 Sep 2020 01:39 PM PDT  Hackers from Russia, China, and Iran have set their sights on the 2020 presidential election, including Russian hackers behind attacks in 2016, Microsoft has announced.On Thursday, Microsoft said it has in recent weeks "detected cyberattacks targeting people and organizations involved in the upcoming presidential election," including "unsuccessful attacks" on people associated with the campaigns of both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.Microsoft laid out in a blog post how Russian hackers who have been identified as being responsible for attacks on the 2016 Democratic presidential campaign have attacked "more than 200 organizations," including political campaigns and parties, and that since 2016, their tactics have "evolved."Additionally, Microsoft said Chinese hackers have attacked "high-profile individuals associated with the election," including people associated with Biden's campaign and at least one person formerly associated with the Trump administration, and Iranian hackers have attacked personal accounts of people associated with Trump's campaign. Most of the attacks were "detected and stopped," the company said.The Washington Post reports that the Republican National Committee was "unsuccessfully targeted," but that it's "unclear by which country.""We think Russian military intelligence poses the greatest foreign threat to the elections," John Hultquist, intelligence analysis director at the cybersecurity firm FireEye, told the Post. "It's concerning to find them targeting organizations associated with campaigns again."Microsoft said the activity "makes clear that foreign activity groups have stepped up their efforts targeting the 2020 election."More stories from theweek.com Trump knew it all along The true Election Day nightmare scenario The staggering consequences of Trump's coronavirus lies
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| Global Paperboard Packaging Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 01:27 PM PDT |
| Halo fan spent 5 years building a 7-foot-long UNSC frigate out of LEGOs Posted: 10 Sep 2020 01:26 PM PDT |
| Q&A: La Nina may bring more Atlantic storms, western drought Posted: 10 Sep 2020 12:50 PM PDT  La Nina — which often means a busier Atlantic hurricane season, a drier Southwest and perhaps a more fire-prone California — has popped up in the Pacific Ocean. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday that a La Nina, the cooler flip side of the better known El Nino, has formed. Meteorologists had been watching it brewing for months.
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| U.S. could restrict funds for malign activities over Navalny poisoning Posted: 10 Sep 2020 12:31 PM PDT |
| Dem report: Medicare chief used fed money to bolster image Posted: 10 Sep 2020 12:30 PM PDT  Private consultants to the federal official who oversees Medicare billed taxpayers almost $6 million in less than two years to bolster her personal image, including efforts to win awards, place her on lists of powerful women and arrange meetings with influential people, a report by congressional Democrats said Thursday. The consultants, many with Republican Party ties, billed taxpayers up to $380 per hour on work largely aimed at polishing the profile of Medicare administrator Seema Verma, the investigators wrote. One contractor, Pam Stevens, who's done extensive work for the GOP, charged up to $330 hourly to pursue ideas like asking publications including "Oprah Magazine" and "Garden and Gun" to write articles about Verma.
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| How Kim Jong Un ‘Played’ Donald Trump Posted: 10 Sep 2020 12:26 PM PDT  North Korea's Kim Jong Un, staving off the impact of COVID-19 and sanctions on his hungry people, may count on his man in the White House for unremitting support in time of need."Kim Jong Un is in good health," Donald Trump tweeted Thursday like a star-struck groupie, all while battling the fallout from his COVID cover-up exposed by Bob Woodward's latest book. "Never underestimate him!" Nor, to judge from passages in Woodward's Rage, should one underestimate Trump's infatuation with a bloodthirsty dictator. The book recounts how Kim played on Trump's vanity: his messages addressed Trump as "excellency," and Kim spoke of their "deep and special friendship"—describing one "historic meeting" as "reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film." This "deep and special friendship between us," he said, "will work as a magical force" between his country and the U.S., "clearing all the hurdles we face in the process of bringing about the developments we seek to achieve."Where Is Kim Yo Jong? Kim Jong Un's Sister Goes Missing From Big Party MeetingIn Woodward's account, Kim also regaled Trump with tales—some likely, some not—about his dictatorship over his people, none more revealing than his execution of his uncle nearly seven years ago.Whether Kim went beyond what North Korea had already put out at the time about the trial and execution of Jang Song Thaek, married to the younger sister of Kim's father, the long-ruling Kim Jong Il, is not clear. But there's no doubt Trump was awe-struck by the man he once said had told him of holding Jang's head on a platter.The bottom line, as far as North Korea experts are concerned, is that Trump was easily taken in by Kim in their three meetings—at their first summit in Singapore in June 2018, then again in Hanoi in February last year, and on the North-South Korea line in Panmunjom in June last year. "The revelations in the book confirm all of the fears we had that Trump was 'played' by Kim, who knew exactly what he wanted and what he needed to say to Trump to get it," said Evans Revere, one-time senior U.S. diplomat in Seoul. "Kim's tale of the execution of his uncle makes sense." Trump apparently lapped it all up, just as he's so easily impressed by other dictators about whom he's often spoken in adoring terms. "Kim knew about Trump's fascination with unbridled, even brutal, power and Trump's affinity for authoritarians and authoritarianism," said Revere. "He knew that Trump had lavished praise on Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin for their toughness, and by sharing the story of his uncle's execution, he sought to endear himself to the U.S. president. It obviously worked."North Korea has yet to corroborate anything Trump told Woodward, but more than a year ago Trump did say that Kim had told a blood-curdling tale of Jang' s demise, climaxed by displaying his head. That story probably has about as much truth as an earlier yarn about Kim Jong Un ordering Jang's execution by a pack of mad dogs, but Lee Sung-yoon, professor at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, assumes Trump "was exaggerating to underscore the point that he formed a rapport with Kim." Kim, "murderous psychopath that he is, would not have told Trump in person that he had his uncle's head 'displayed' or gone into graphic detail about his uncle's gruesome public execution," said Lee, but his messages may well have spoken of the "swift justice" or "stern punishment" meted out to Jang as a "traitor" convicted of numerous crimes, notably corruption.Bradley Martin, author of the definitive Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, agrees. "What Kim was telling Trump about," said Martin, was "how he humiliated the traitor uncle." Or maybe Trump cooked up the whole story."Trump probably thought he could impress Woodward with a dramatic tale that also showed how good his relationship with Kim is and how much Kim trusts Trump," said David Straub, who spent years in Seoul as a political officer at the U.S. embassy. "Just the kind of thing that Trump would wildly exaggerate if not entirely make up."Straub figures that Kim snuffing his uncle remains "an extraordinary sensitive thing even today in North Korea"—and thus "unlikely to be the kind of thing that Kim would want to talk about, especially with an American president." For that reason alone, he said, "North Korea may not say anything in response."But Choi Jin-wook, president of the Center for Strategic and Cultural Studies in Seoul, believes Kim may have had his own subtle reasons for spinning the tale for Trump's exclusive benefit. "This is a very active gesture to build trust with Trump," said Choi. "North Korea rarely admits its bad behavior, but there are exceptions if they need a dramatic turnaround." Could it be that Kim was "looking for an emergency outlet" in hopes of "a big deal or business with Trump," Choi wondered. "What a deliberately calculated action."The story of Jang's execution, by whatever means, obviously appealed to Trump about as much as Kim's heavy-handed flattery. Kim "may well have told President Trump about it to illustrate how powerful he is," said Bruce Bennett at the RAND Corporation. That Kim "was able to totally humiliate and execute someone even as powerful as his uncle would illustrate how powerful he thinks he is."While "we may never know whether the story that Kim Jong-un reportedly told President Trump about Uncle Jang is truthful or not," said Bennett, "it likely served Kim's purposes."That much was evident from Trump's Twitter toast to Kim's good health. Kim this year has made far fewer public appearances than in previous years possibly because of fears of the coronavirus. He's closed the border with China, North Korea's sole benefactor and almost exclusive trading partner, while calling special meetings of top party leaders to talk about curbing the spread of the disease.Still, Kim has repeatedly bounced back after reports of being at death's door. Just this week the North's state media quoted Kim at a meeting of the ruling party's military commission lamenting "the unexpected damage" of a typhoon. All of which, said General Robert Abrams, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, at a seminar in Washington, means "their military is focused principally on getting their country recovered and to help mitigate the risk of COVID-19," which Trump is confident Kim has avoided.Not that Trump ever evinced any qualms about Kim's health, capabilities, or genius in the first place. How else could it be for the man who Trump told Woodward was "beyond smart" and "tells me everything"? Indeed, Trump professed in 2018 that he and the North Korean leader "fell in love." "Trump sends him pictures... sends him letters," John Bolton, Trump's erstwhile national security adviser, once observed. "I don't know how President Trump can be more forthcoming in his efforts to have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Russia, China and Iran target US elections with cyberattacks Posted: 10 Sep 2020 12:15 PM PDT  Russia is once again trying to interfere with a US presidential election. So are China and Iran.
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| Russia, China and Iran launched cyberattacks on presidential campaigns, Microsoft says Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:50 AM PDT  Hackers working for Russia, China and Iran have recently escalated their attacks around the U.S. presidential race as Election Day looms, Microsoft says. Microsoft's vice president of customer security and trust, Tom Burt, wrote in a blog post published Thursday that the company's cybersecurity experts had recently seen an uptick in hackers' targeting campaigns. "In recent weeks, Microsoft has detected cyberattacks targeting people and organizations involved in the upcoming Presidential election," Burt wrote.
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| Disastrous flooding impacts millions across Africa Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:47 AM PDT  The wet season has been in full swing across parts of Africa in recent weeks, bringing devastating flooding and causing hundreds of deaths from Senegal to Somalia.While farmers, especially along the River Nile, rely on some flooding during the rainy season to create fertile ground for growing crops, the flooding this year has left disastrous impacts.More than 1.21 million people across 12 different countries have been impacted by flooding from August to September, according to The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). A man walks beside a flooded road in the town of Shaqilab, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, Aug. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali) The Security and Defense Council of Sudan declared a three-month-long state of emergency on Sept. 4 after heavy rainfall destroyed 100,000 homes. At least 99 deaths are being blamed on the flooding, according to the IFRC.CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APPAfter weeks of persistent downpours, the Blue Nile, a tributary to the River Nile, rose to 17.58 m (57.68 feet) last week. According to a report from Al Jazeera, this flooding exceeds records set in 1946 and 1988.The pyramids at al-Bajrawiya in Sudan, which usually sit about 500 m (1,600 ft) away from the Nile, are at risk due to the expansive flooding. Officials have built sandbag walls and have been pumping out water in an effort to protect the more-than-2,300-year-old ruins, the BBC reported.This United Nations-designated world heritage site is located about 200 km (125 miles) northeast of the capital city of Khartoum."The floods had never affected the site before," archaeologist Marc Maillot told AFP, according to the BBC. "The situation is currently under control, but if the level of the Nile continues to rise, the measures taken may not be sufficient."South Sudan has also been impacted by heavy rainfall and excessive flooding of the White Nile River. More than 100 people have died and around 600,000 have been displaced due to flooding.According to CNBC, Senegal, along the western coast of Africa, recorded 124 mm (4.88 inches) of rain over the course of a seven-hour downpour, on Sept. 7. This is the same amount that would usually be expected across the entire rainy season running from July to September.No relief from the wet weather is in sight across central Africa as more rounds of rain and thunderstorms are expected through at least the weekend, according to AccuWeather meteorologists. Areas of rain are expected to become heavy enough to exacerbate flooding from Senegal to Somalia or create new areas of flooding.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| UK rejects EU call to back down over Brexit bill Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:47 AM PDT  Britain's government on Thursday defied threats from the European Union of legal action over contentious Brexit legislation, and pushed back against a brewing revolt within its own ranks for violating the binding divorce treaty.
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| Microsoft: Foreign hackers are targeting Biden and Trump camps Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:45 AM PDT |
| Trump campaigns in battleground Michigan amid book fallout Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:31 AM PDT  Reeling from another crisis of his own making, President Donald Trump tried to refocus attention on his Democratic rival at a rally in battleground Michigan Thursday as he pushed to move past revelations that he purposefully played down the danger of the coronavirus last winter. Trump, however, reveled in the crowd of several thousand, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in a cavernous airport hangar, mostly without masks — with Air Force One on display as his backdrop. "This is not the crowd of a person who comes in second place," Trump declared to cheers as he railed against Whitmer for current state restrictions.
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| Taliban say peace talks with Afghan team to start Saturday Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:14 AM PDT  The long-awaited peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government's negotiating team are to begin on Saturday in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, the Taliban and Qatar's foreign ministry said Thursday. The talks — known as intra-Afghan negotiations — were laid out in a peace deal that Washington brokered with the Taliban and signed in February, also in Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office. At the time, the deal was seen as Afghanistan's best chance at ending more than four decades of relentless war.
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| Global Plastic Bags and Sacks Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:07 AM PDT |
| Five key revelations in Bob Woodward’s Trump book, from Covid to Kim 'love letters' Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:05 AM PDT  Rage, based on 18 interviews with the president, shows Trump implicating himself, such as downplaying the Covid threatBob Woodward's forthcoming book, Rage, spurred extensive uproar following Washington Post and CNN reports on Wednesday on some of the famed investigative journalist's bombshell claims.Woodward's reporting – which is largely based on 18 interviews with Donald Trump – show the president implicating himself with his own words, admitting, for example, that he knowingly downplayed Covid-19. Here are the most explosive revelations from Woodward's book. Trump knew coronavirus was a significant threat early onDuring a 7 February phone call with Woodward, Trump reportedly recognized that the virus was dangerous. "It goes through the air. That's always tougher than the touch. You don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus." Woodward also reported that Trump said: "This is deadly stuff."Woodward's reporting on Trump's comments show the dramatic divide between the president's apparent knowledge of coronavirus's dangers and his public statements. Trump told the public on 27 February: "It's going to disappear. One day – it's like a miracle – it will disappear." Trump also compared Covid-19 to the seasonal flu in a 9 March tweet, writing: "Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on" during flu season. "Think about that!" Fears about war with North KoreaTrump's national security team voiced concerns that the US might have neared nuclear war with North Korea amid heightened tensions in 2017. "We never knew whether it was real … or whether it was a bluff," Woodward quoted the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, as saying.Although it was unclear whether this threat was real, the possibility was so concerning that the then US defense secretary, James Mattis, slept in his clothes. Mattis, Woodward reported, wanted to be ready in the event North Korea fired weapons at the US. Mattis also went to the Washington National Cathedral on numerous occasions to pray amid concerns over potential conflict, Woodward said. The US has a new secret weapons systemDuring one of Trump's interviews with Woodward, he bragged about the US's new weapons tech. "I have built a nuclear – a weapons system that nobody's ever had in this country before."Woodward claimed that other sources backed Trump's statement, and that they were surprised Trump discussed it. It's unclear why Trump shared apparently secret weapons information with Woodward. 'Love letters' to Kim Jong-unWoodward acquired 27 "love letters" Trump exchanged with the North Korean dictator. Kim flattered Trump in these missives by repeatedly calling him "Your Excellency"; he also remarked that there's a "deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force". Kim writes in one letter that meeting again would be "reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film". Top Trump officials thought Trump was dangerousFormer cabinet officials were alarmed by Trump's impulsiveness and lack of focus. "The president has no moral compass," Woodward quoted Mattis as saying. Mattis also reportedly said that Trump's foreign policy moves showed enemies "how to destroy America. That's what we're showing them. How to isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it's working very well."He's dangerous," Mattis reportedly said in conversation with ex-national intelligence director Dan Coats. "He's unfit."Coats also thought that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had damaging information about the president. Coats "continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump", Woodward said.
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| 'A historic opportunity': Afghan peace talks to begin 19 years after U.S. invasion Posted: 10 Sep 2020 11:04 AM PDT  From 2009 to last year, more than 100,000 civilians were killed or injured in the war-torn nation, according to United Nations estimates.
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| Global Polyaspartic Coatings Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 10:47 AM PDT |
| Global Sports Guns Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 10:10 AM PDT |
| EU sea patrol stops UAE ship on suspicion of breaking Libya arms embargo Posted: 10 Sep 2020 10:08 AM PDT |
| Global Polyester Fibers Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 10:07 AM PDT |
| Trump told a reporter his biggest secret: that he is a danger to the American people Posted: 10 Sep 2020 10:00 AM PDT  Trump is a particularly stupid man who thinks he is very smart. Perhaps this lies at the root of his monumentally dumb decision to grant Bob Woodward 18 interviews The Inuit are supposed to have dozens of words to describe snow. The Brits have endless ways to talk about rain. Now it's time for Americans to delineate all the many ways that Donald Trump is dumb.If Bob Woodward's new blockbuster teaches us anything new about the character of the 45th president, it's that we don't yet have the words to describe the multiple variants of the vacuum inside his head.There's the stupidity of arrogance, the stupidity of ignorance and his old friend: the stupidity of blatant duplicity. There's his homicidal stupidity, his traitorous stupidity, his criminally corrupt stupidity and his plain old infantile stupidity.Let's start with the top of this taxonomy: the domain of Donald's dumbness. At his core, the former reality TV star is a particularly stupid man who thinks he is very smart. Or as he prefers to call his own character, "a very stable genius".Perhaps, just maybe, this lies at the root of his monumentally dumb decision to grant Woodward 18 interviews, on the record and on tape.Maintaining a modicum of self-restraint would be an overwhelming challenge for this president for the duration of just one response to one question. Over the course of many hours of conversation, after business hours in the executive mansion, even the ultra-disciplined Barack Obama would struggle to keep his guard up.Instead, our very stupid genius vomited up all manner of secrets that collectively prove beyond all reasonable doubt that he represents the greatest single danger to the fate of both the American people and to himself.How do we classify the stupidity of blabbing the greatest secret of them all: that he knew all along how Covid-19 was deadly and easily transmissible? We now know that in late January, his national security adviser told him the coronavirus was the "biggest national security threat" of his presidency. A week later, he told Woodward that the disease was "more deadly even than your strenuous flus".Did he bother to share this with the American people so they could protect their own lives? Not quite. For the rest of February and March, he told the world it would disappear like a miracle, that it was no worse than the flu. "I wanted to always play it down," he told Woodward. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."This from a president whose entire re-election campaign rests on injecting panic in white voters like bleach.For some time we have misclassified Trump's botched pandemic response as the stupidity of ignorance. But it turns out to be a hybrid specimen of the stupidities of arrogance and duplicity. Certainly within the homicidal genus. The scientific world should take note.Our proof was on display on Wednesday as it emerged from – where else? – the blabbing hole of the presidential mouth at his own press conference. "So the fact is, I'm a cheerleader for this country. I love our country. And I don't want people to be frightened," he told reporters. "We want to show confidence. We want to show strength."> Nothing blows up your pushback against Woodward ('another political hit job') like admitting to your arrogance and duplicity at a press conferenceNothing says confidence or strength quite like 190,000 dead citizens. And nothing blows up your pushback against Woodward ("another political hit job") like admitting to your arrogance and duplicity at a press conference.Sometimes there are actual reasons for people to be frightened. Sometimes your citizens need to take appropriate measures to protect themselves and their country. One of those times is when they have a colossally cretinous commander-in-chief.The stupidity of arrogance is the only way to classify Trump's blithe declassification of the existence of a secret nuclear program, in one of his many happy-go-lucky chit-chats with the man who destroyed the Nixon presidency."I have built a nuclear – a weapons system that nobody's ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven't even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before," said the leader of the free world, making sure that the Russian and Chinese leaders have now heard about his super-duper-secret new weapons system. Woodward reports that his sources were surprised that Trump had revealed its existence.It's hard to be in stealth mode when your leader's loose lips are busy sinking ships.This possibly sits within the traitorous genus of stupidity, although there are multiple specimens of this. So many, in fact, that the wise old men who sullied their reputations by serving him decided that Something Must Be Done.Woodward recounts that Jim Mattis, Trump's defense secretary, went to the national cathedral to pray for the nation, and emerged to tell Dan Coats, Trump's intelligence chief, that "there may come a time when we have to take collective action". This appears to be a reference to the cabinet invoking the 25th amendment to remove an incapacitated president from office.In reality, despite all that praying, it was Mattis and Coats who were incapacitated: they knew Trump was a danger to the republic but couldn't bring themselves to say such things to the world in real time. Coats himself came to believe that "Putin had something on Trump" but couldn't figure out what it was. What's the point of being smart if you're constantly outplayed by someone so stupid?Because of their failures to act, we now have an intelligence community that suppresses warnings about Russian election interference and white supremacist terrorists, while hyping conspiracies about antifa. You could say this was an impeachable state of affairs, but Republican senators have developed a new stupidity of cowardice.Like all truly stupid people, Trump thinks he's rather brilliant at identifying the intelligence of those around him. He thinks that George W Bush is "a stupid moron" and that Barack Obama isn't smart but instead "highly overrated" – and a poor speaker to boot. A broken clock may be right twice a day, but it still can't tell the time.Of course it takes a village of idiots to create this Olympic-sized village idiot. So it is comforting to learn that Jared Kushner has identified the problem in this White House. The president's son-in-law likes to think of himself as the best and brightest of Trump's bozos, but we can all see him as a classic cross-breed of corrupt and infantile stupidity."The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots," Kushner told Woodward, apparently referring to people like Mattis.The irony gods have truly bequeathed us a feast of overconfident idiots. We shall celebrate it each year in November, once we think of the right word to define their dangerous mix of overconfidence and idiocy. Because snowflake seems such an innocent way to describe such stupid men.
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| How tear gas may be wreaking havoc on protesters' reproductive health Posted: 10 Sep 2020 09:42 AM PDT |
| Israel's Netanyahu pressed to sign conflict-of-interest deal Posted: 10 Sep 2020 09:31 AM PDT  With Israel's prime minister lashing out at him nearly every day, the country's attorney general is pressing Benjamin Netanyahu to sign a conflict-of-interest agreement barring him from influencing key appointments that could affect his corruption trial. Charged in a series of scandals, Netanyahu has long accused police, prosecutors and the media of trying to oust him in a deep-state conspiracy. Netanyahu has stepped up those attacks in recent days, following a pair of TV reports alleging cover-ups by police and prosecutors, including a case of possible conflict of interest by a police investigator.
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| Global Polymerase Chain Reaction Consumables Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 09:27 AM PDT |
| Pentagon watchdog: More child sex assault reforms are needed Posted: 10 Sep 2020 09:11 AM PDT  For the second time this year, an independent federal review has faulted the U.S. Department of Defense for how it has responded when children on military bases sexually assault each other. A report released Wednesday by the Pentagon's Office of Inspector General said leaders have downplayed incidents, not cooperated with civilian law enforcement and until recently failed to provide support services to victims. More than 1 million school-age children live in military families—many on U.S. bases where, as in broader society, kids and teens sometimes sexually assault their peers.
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| TRESemmé: South African shops pull products after 'racist' hair adverts Posted: 10 Sep 2020 09:03 AM PDT  Some of South Africa's biggest retailers act after a public outcry over an advert for hair products.
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| AP PHOTOS: Wildfires race through dry, windy California Posted: 10 Sep 2020 08:53 AM PDT  Over the last month, California wildfires have chased thousands of families from their homes, destroyed more than 3,600 buildings, blackened huge expanses of land and killed 12 people. In all, more than two dozen major fires are burning around the state, some of them among the largest in recent California history. Feeding off strong winds and dry brush, the fast-growing blazes have chewed through old-growth redwoods and chaparral and forced evacuations in wine country north of San Francisco and along the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
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| U.S. Identifies Rudy Ally and Biden Dirt-Peddler as an ‘Active Russian Agent’ Posted: 10 Sep 2020 08:52 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's personal lawyer has been working closely with "an active Russian agent" trying to smear the president's chief political rival.That's the conclusion of the U.S. Treasury Department, which on Thursday sanctioned one of Rudy Giuliani's Ukrainian allies for interference in the upcoming U.S. elections. Andriy Derkach worked closely with Giuliani—and with the Trump-friendly cable network OANN—to push accusations of political misconduct against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Derkach, a member of Kyiv's parliament and son of a former KGB officer, has also been supplying documents to Republicans on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is conducting an election-eve investigation into the Bidens. Derkach—described by the Treasury Department as "an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services"—stands accused of orchestrating a "covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives" about the Bidens via "edited audio tapes and other unsupported information," which launched "corruption investigations in both Ukraine and the United States designed to culminate prior to election day." As The Daily Beast previously reported, Derkach has been cozying up to team Trump for months—meeting with Giuliani in Kyiv in December of last year to push the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election. (That's "a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services," Fiona Hill, Trump's former top aide for Russia policy, told Congress.)Nevertheless, Trump's media allies have been quick to run with Derkach's claims. As The Daily Beast previously reported, John Solomon, the famously Trump-friendly and ethically-compromised former editor at The Hill, published a story mirroring Derkach's assertions about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Meanwhile, the Russophilic, Trumpy cable channel OANN featured Derkach prominently in its series promising to "negate the Democrat impeachment narrative."Rudy Giuliani—and Russia—Pay Close Attention to This Ukrainian Conspiracy-PeddlerIn May, Derkach released edited audio recordings of what he claimed were compromising conversations between Joe Biden and former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko. In the tapes, Biden praises Poroshenko for appointing a new prosecutor general and promises to sign a $1 billion loan guarantee in return for anti-corruption efforts. Derkach claimed that investigative journalists had leaked the phone calls to him. Trumpworld figures framed the tapes as evidence of a long-running Republican conspiracy that Biden tried to force out the old prosecutor general to head off an investigation into the Ukraine gas company Burisma, where his son Hunter sat on the board. But Joe Biden's campaign called the audio recordings a "nothingburger" and his team has denied that the former vice president's push with Poroshenko had anything to do with Burisma. (Biden did not mention Burisma or Hunter Biden on the leaked tapes, and he has previously acknowledged that U.S. loans to Ukraine were tied to anti-corruption progress.)Derkach claims that that he sent his information on the Bidens—which the Treasury Department described as "unsubstantiated"—to Sen. Johnson, who has been heading up a congressional committee to look into the Burisma affair. But Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) continue to insist that they have "neither sought out, relied upon, nor publicly released anything that could even remotely be considered disinformation." But election security watchers have for months underscored the possibility that Johnson's committee is laundering Derkach's disinformation through intermediaries such as Solomon as a way to create some distance between the investigation and the accused "Russian agent."Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress have hit back at Johnson's probe and slammed Derkach's efforts as election meddling. The Director for the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) agreed, citing Derkach and the leaked tapes back in August as an example of Russian-backed interference in the 2020 elections, part of a "range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia 'establishment.'' The NCSC notes that Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, are still hostile to Biden over the Obama administration's past support of an independent Ukraine and its backing of anti-Putin opposition leaders.Three other individuals linked to a Russian troll factory were sanctioned alongside Derkach on Thursday. The U.S. Treasury singled out Russians Artem Lifshits, Anton Andreyev, and Darya Aslanova as agents of the Internet Research Agency and its "Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin." (Known as "Putin's chef," the fearsome Prigozhin also controls the shadowy Wagner mercenary group. Prigozhin was previously sanctioned over funding the Internet Research Agency [IRA] to meddle in the 2018 midterms.) Treasury accused Lifshits, Andreyev, and Aslanova of using "cryptocurrency to fund activities in furtherance of their ongoing malign influence operations around the world." In a separate action, federal prosecutors charged a Russian man with wire fraud conspiracy for his role working on behalf of the Russian troll farm the Internet Research Agency. The Justice Department alleged that Artem Mikhaylovich Lifshits served as a "task manager" in the IRA's "Project Lakhda," its effort to sow division and interfere in elections in the U.S. Lifshits, according to the indictment, was listed in an employee roster discovered by federal agents, and acted as a translator, which meant he was likely "directly involved in social media messages and other messages directed at and intended to influence" the United States.Derkach's sanctions come on the same day that Microsoft revealed it had thwarted Kremlin-backed attempts to hack into nearly 200 political organizations, including a communications firm with close ties to the Biden campaign. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| Global Tapping Sleeves Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 08:30 AM PDT |
| Denis Mukwege: UN guards DR Congo Nobel laureate after death threats Posted: 10 Sep 2020 08:24 AM PDT  Renowned gynaecologist Denis Mukwege says he received death threats after condemning a massacre.
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| Coronavirus: Is the rate of growth in Africa slowing down? Posted: 10 Sep 2020 08:23 AM PDT  The overall rate of increase may be slowing, but there have still been sharp rises in some countries.
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| Global Tissue Paper Packaging Machines Industry Posted: 10 Sep 2020 06:10 AM PDT |
| The U.S. and North Korea were so close to nuclear war, Mattis frequently prayed in church, Woodward says Posted: 10 Sep 2020 05:30 AM PDT  During the first stage of President Trump's complicated love-hate relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — the "Little Rocket Man" period — Trump's national security team was concerned that the two countries came close to nuclear war, journalist Bob Woodward writes in his forthcoming book, Rage. "We never knew whether it was real," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then CIA director, is reported to have said, "or whether it was a bluff." Defense Secretary James Mattis took the threat seriously enough to sleep in his clothes and frequent Washington National Cathedral, CNN recaps:> pic.twitter.com/7JtSDDyxZK> > — Vipin Narang (@NarangVipin) September 9, 2020Mattis told Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats that Trump is "dangerous" and "unfit" for the presidency, Woodward reports, and he quotes Mattis describing the final straw — pulling U.S. forces out of Kurdish-controlled Syria — that prompted him to resign: "I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid, strategically jeopardizing our place in the world and everything else." Trump, on the other hand, is quoted as telling trade adviser Peter Navarro in 2017 that "my f--king generals are a bunch of pussies" because "they care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals."Trump and Kim ended up exchanging 27 "love letters," and while North Korea has evidently expanded its nuclear arsenal, there were no nuclear strikes. Coats, fired by Trump while on one of Trump's golf courses, "examined the intelligence as carefully as possible" and "continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that [Russia's Vladimir] Putin had something on Trump," Woodward reports.Unlike previous presidents who cooperated with Woodard's books, Trump "looks to have just held riffing sessions" with him "while the Washington Post legend burrowed his way into his senior staff with much of the White House none the wiser," Politico reports. "The result is a White House that was almost completely blindsided by Wednesday's revelations."More stories from theweek.com Trump knew it all along The true Election Day nightmare scenario The staggering consequences of Trump's coronavirus lies
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| Danes tap migration envoy as EU eyes asylum system reforms Posted: 10 Sep 2020 05:19 AM PDT |
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