| Nigeria's opportunity for return of Benin Bronzes Posted: 11 Sep 2020 04:51 PM PDT  With European museums on the back foot following Black Lives Matter protests, the emphasis moves to Nigeria.
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| UN assembly approves resolution on dealing with the pandemic Posted: 11 Sep 2020 04:42 PM PDT  The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a wide-ranging resolution on tackling the coronavirus pandemic Friday over objections from the United States and Israel, which protested a successful last-minute Cuban amendment that strongly urged countries to oppose any unilateral economic, financial or trade sanctions. The 193-member world body adopted the resolution by a vote of 169-2, with Ukraine and Hungary abstaining. The resolution, which is not legally binding, is the third and most extensive adopted by the General Assembly.
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| Belarus president to visit Russia on Monday: Kremlin Posted: 11 Sep 2020 03:31 PM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday will hold talks with Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who faces the biggest protest of his nearly three-decade rule, the Kremlin said.
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| US judge: Saudi royals must answer questions in 9/11 lawsuit Posted: 11 Sep 2020 01:54 PM PDT |
| Wildfire smoke brings worst air quality to Portland, Seattle Posted: 11 Sep 2020 01:20 PM PDT  Public health officials warned residents to keep indoors with the windows shut, to set air conditioners to run on recirculated air instead of fresh, and to use air purifiers if they had them. Meanwhile, they wrestled with whether to open "smoke shelters" for homeless people or others lacking access to clean air amid the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns about herding people indoors.
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| Study: Kids infected at day care spread coronavirus at home Posted: 11 Sep 2020 01:19 PM PDT  Children who caught the coronavirus at day cares and a day camp spread it to their relatives, according to a new report that underscores that kids can bring the germ home and infect others. Scientists already know children can spread the virus. The findings don't mean that schools and child-care programs need to close, but it does confirm that the virus can spread within those places and then be brought home by kids.
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| Combat vet killed by Texas deputy buried in Alabama on 9/11 Posted: 11 Sep 2020 12:33 PM PDT  His Army stint complete after serving in Afghanistan, Damian Daniels left Alabama to begin a new life in Texas. Black himself, Daniels was working to start a new business when paranoid hallucinations began last month and a brother sought help from police. Shot dead by officers who were sent to aid him, Daniels was buried Friday on Sept. 11, the anniversary of the date that sent him down the path to war.
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| Egypt journalist arrested over coverage of detainee's death Posted: 11 Sep 2020 12:32 PM PDT  A prominent Egyptian journalist who reported on a young man's death in police custody has been detained on charges of reporting fake news, his employer said Friday, the latest blow to press freedoms in the country. The arrest of journalist Islam el-Kalhy comes after the arrest of several other local reporters in recent weeks, despite fears of the spread of the coronavirus in Egyptian prisons. The government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has squeezed space for traditional media outlets and stamped out nearly all dissent as part of a wide-ranging crackdown.
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| Challenger to QAnon supporter bows out of race in Georgia Posted: 11 Sep 2020 12:28 PM PDT  The Democratic candidate for an open U.S. House seat in Georgia dropped out of the race Friday, clearing a near-certain path to victory for a QAnon-supporting Republican contender who has been criticized for her incendiary comments. Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal bowed out of the race against Marjorie Taylor Greene for "personal and family reasons," his campaign manager Vinny Olsziewski told The Associated Press. Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said Friday that the window has passed for Democrats to replace Van Ausdal, likely sealing a win for the already-favored Greene.
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| Boris Johnson: EU a threat to integrity of the UK Posted: 11 Sep 2020 12:26 PM PDT  Boris Johnson has accused the European Union of threatening to impose a food "blockade" in the Irish Sea that would destroy the "economic and territorial integrity of the UK". Writing in The Telegraph (you can read the article in full below), the Prime Minister made a passionate defence of his decision to alter the Brexit divorce deal, saying he has to protect Britain from the "disaster" of handing Brussels the "power to carve up our country". He also issued a direct plea to Tory MPs threatening to rebel over his plans, telling them that, if they stand in his way, they will reduce the chance of getting a trade deal with the EU. Mr Johnson insisted a Canada-style trade deal with the bloc is still possible and remains his goal, but that Brussels must "take their threats off the table" and rebel MPs must get into line. He also believes the UK will still "prosper mightily" under a narrower, Australia-style trade deal. The Prime Minister claimed the EU could effectively impose a food blockade across the Irish Sea by refusing to grant the UK approved "third party" status for food exports, which officials say Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, has "explicitly" threatened.
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| NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week Posted: 11 Sep 2020 12:18 PM PDT  None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. CLAIM: A total of 19,888 fake driver's licenses that were made in China and seized at the O'Hare International Airport were all registered to vote as Democrats. THE FACTS: Social media users are misrepresenting a law enforcement report about fake IDs as an example of illegal voter registration.
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| Confirmation gets trickier for Trump Homeland Security pick Posted: 11 Sep 2020 11:33 AM PDT  A whistleblower's complaint and a tight timeline are making it increasingly unlikely that the Senate will confirm Chad Wolf as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security before the election. President Donald Trump formally sent the nomination late Thursday to the Senate after announcing his intention to appoint Wolf in a tweet last month. The Senate's Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, headed by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, may still pursue a hearing to consider Wolf's nomination in the weeks ahead.
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| Wildfires Keep Getting Worse. So Do the Conspiracy Theories. Posted: 11 Sep 2020 11:06 AM PDT  In the United States, it was the dastardly "antifa." In Australia, it was the Green Party. In Brazil, it was environmentalists. As the world battles wildfires, conspiracy theories wrongly but consistently blame the left for starting the blazes.In the space of a year, Brazil, Australia, and now the U.S. have witnessed catastrophic wildfires. Ruinous burn seasons are poised to get even worse if climate change continues unchecked. Meanwhile, a crisis of truthfulness—which the United Nations termed this year an "infodemic"—has seen conspiracy theorists build massive networks online. The result is a frequently right-leaning disinformation economy that can disseminate hoaxes faster than authorities can debunk them. And in massive wildfires across three continents, that meant falsely blaming the leftie boogeymen of the moment—not climate change—for the flames.Blue Lives Matter Is the Wildfire Cavalry No One Asked ForFires have engulfed the west coast of the U.S. in recent weeks, first in California and now in parts of Oregon and Washington. But officials had to battle more than the blazes. In Oregon, where more than 500,000 people are under evacuation orders, law enforcement took to social media on Thursday to implore people to stop sharing hoaxes about the fires' origins.Those rumors sprang up in a heated political climate, in which President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused antifa, the decentralized anti-fascist movement, of unspecified destructive plots. As fires broke out across the state, social media users, like failed Oregon congressional candidate Paul Romero Jr., issued completely false statements."Douglas County Sheriff has 6 ANTIFA arsonists in custody," Romero tweeted on Wednesday. "Many fires in Oregon. Obviously there are more to track down and arrest. Governor Kate Brown built this."The post was later linked to the anonymous internet personality "Q," who is the figurehead of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely accuses President Donald Trump's foes of Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism. The conspiracy theory had at least 3 million followers in Facebook groups as of this summer, according to an internal Facebook report, and recently enjoyed a tacit embrace in the White House, courtesy of the president of the United States himself.Other sources also baselessly promoted hoaxes about anti-fascists starting the fires. The publication Law Enforcement Today, which bills itself as the largest law enforcement news source, published an article promoting the conspiracy theory, and quickly racked up tens of thousands of social media shares, according to the Guardian. Nevermind that even real law enforcement said the claims were bogus. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office, which Romero claimed had arrested anti-fascists, debunked the rumor publicly."Rumors spread just like wildfire," they wrote on Facebook, "and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON."Some of the antifa rumors, like a popular Twitter thread by a representative for the right-wing group Turning Point USA, explicitly denied that the fires were the result of climate change. Elsewhere across the conspiracy space, truthers have been skeptical of climate science, with chemtrails believers targeting underage climate activists with hoaxes and Flat Earthers suggesting rising temperatures to be the result of Hell moving closer to the planet's surface.Despite their debunking by law enforcement, the antifa rumors resulted in multiple potentially life-threatening situations. Several independent journalists reported that, when they traveled to document the fires, people tagged them as anti-fascist arsonists, and variously called 911 on them or threatened on social media to shoot them. One group of Portland-based journalists said they were stopped on the road by an armed militia, which had self-deputized and set up a checkpoint. One of the journalists said three men pointed guns at them, and that she suspected the men bought into the antifa-fire hoax.One might be forgiven for thinking it was just another uniquely American moment of delusion in a year defined by death, destruction, and lies. But it's not.In Australia, where disastrous fires early this year gave the U.S. a preview of the west coast's current red skies, wildfire misinformation was endemic. Some of it was steeped in climate-denialism, the Guardian noted. Years of fear-mongering about climate protections leading to the loss of working-class jobs had left some communities primed to view the environmentalist left as a villain. They accused the Green Party, a left-leaning party with relatively little electoral power, of causing the fires by campaigning against back burning, a practice of starting controlled fires to reduce the damage of large wildfires. (Fire officials debunked those rumors, and the Green Party actually supported controlled fires, which remain legal.)Are They Symptoms of COVID-19 or Wildfire Smoke? Frontline Docs Are Freaking OutOther Australian conspiracy theories were even more ludicrous, and spread via some of the same vectors as right-wing scaremongering the U.S. One theory, promoted in the U.S. by Donald Trump Jr. and Fox New host Sean Hannity, falsely claimed that nearly 200 people had been arrested for intentionally starting the fires. Although these claims suggested a nefarious plot, which dovetailed with other accusations against the leftist Greens, the truth was that almost all the arrested people were not accused of arson, but of violating anti-fire measures like discarding lit cigarettes or hosting unsafe barbeques, HuffPost reported.And when fires overtook Brazil's Amazon rainforest last summer, the country's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro falsely accused environmentalist groups of lighting the sparks. "On the question of burning in the Amazon, which in my opinion may have been initiated by NGOs because they lost money, what is the intention? To bring problems to Brazil," Bolsonaro said, according to Vice News.Bolsonaro accused those environmentalist groups of trying to "call attention against" him and the government, presumably over his famously anti-environmentalist stance. Under Bolsonaro, who has been personally fined for environmental infractions, Brazil has taken a chainsaw to its forests, the largest in the world, and opened those sanctuaries up for commercial enterprises. Some of the Amazon fires were the direct result of deforestation efforts, with farmers setting deliberate blazes to clear the land.Call it projection. While the right blames the left for the blazes, many of the targeted activists and environmentalists have spent years warning of climate catastrophe. And while Bolsonaro, like Trump, has expressed skepticism or outright denial of climate change, virtually every expert on the subject says the warming planet is fueling the blazes.As her state sent evacuation orders to some 10 percent of its population on Thursday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said the fires had become a worldwide problem."We have never seen this amount of uncontained fire across the state." she said in a press conference: "We are feeling the acute impacts of climate change. We are seeing its acute impacts in Oregon, on the West Coast, and frankly in the entire world."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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| Bahrain becomes latest Arab nation to recognize Israel Posted: 11 Sep 2020 10:02 AM PDT  Bahrain on Friday agreed to normalize relations with Israel, becoming the latest Arab nation to do so as part of a broader diplomatic push by President Donald Trump and his administration to further ease the Jewish state's relative isolation in the Middle East and find common ground with nations that share U.S. wariness of Iran. Trump announced the agreement on the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks following a phone call he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The three leaders also issued a brief joint statement marking the second such Arab normalization agreement with Israel in the past two months.
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| Israel agrees peace deal with Bahrain as Donald Trump hails 'another historic breakthrough' Posted: 11 Sep 2020 09:38 AM PDT  Israel and Bahrain have struck a historic peace deal brokered by Donald Trump, following a similar accord with the United Arab Emirates, as the US president brings together former foes in the Middle East. "Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain agree to a Peace Deal – the second Arab country to make peace with Israel in 30 days!" the President announced on Twitter on Friday night. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, hailed a "new era of peace" and said "there will be more [peace deals with Arab states]." Bahrain is the second Gulf state to embrace Israel, after the UAE announced on 13 August that it would establish a full diplomatic relationship with the Jewish state and strike a series of trade deals. A small, oil-rich nation in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain is a close ally of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and is also broadly supportive of President Trump's tough stance on Iran. Next Tuesday Mr Netanyahu and his Emirati counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed, are due to attend a signing ceremony in Washington to finalise the details of their accord. It has been speculated that Bahrain's Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, may attend the same ceremony to confirm the new relationship. Under the terms of the UAE-Israel deal, Israel agreed to suspend its controversial plans to annex up to 30 per cent of the West Bank, which the Palestinians claim as their own land. Emirati officials say it was the threat of annexation that brought them to the negotiating table. Both the UAE and Bahrain share some common ground on security issues with Israel and the United States, as they are all concerned about the growing influence of the Iranian regime in the Middle East. Analysts say President Trump is seeking to style himself as the world's peacemaker ahead of elections in November, having also secured an economic partnership between Serbia and Kosovo last week that may thaw relations between the former Balkan enemies. Mr Trump had hinted during a press conference on Thursday that a second Arab nation was due to follow the UAE's lead, prompting speculation that it would either be Bahrain or Oman.
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| Libya's eastern parliament meets after rare protests erupt Posted: 11 Sep 2020 09:36 AM PDT  Libya's east-based parliament convened an emergency meeting Friday to address the eruption of rare protests over dire living conditions across the country's east, rallies that mirror similar recent protests in the west of the divided nation. Hundreds of young Libyans first flooded the streets of Benghazi and other eastern cities late Thursday, setting piles of tires ablaze, witnesses said, a spontaneous outburst of anger over the area's crippling electricity shortages. Many demonstrators lit fires in the roads, chanting lyrics from popular anthems decrying government corruption.
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| Trump lauds Medal of Honor recipient for hostage rescue Posted: 11 Sep 2020 09:24 AM PDT  President Donald Trump bestowed the Medal of Honor on a U.S. soldier Friday, calling him "one of the bravest men anywhere in the world" for his role in a daring 2015 missio n to rescue dozens of hostages who were set to be executed by Islamic State militants in Iraq. Trump picked the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to honor Sgt. Maj. Thomas "Patrick" Payne, who negotiated a barrage of enemy gunfire and repeatedly entered a burning building in a harrowing effort that saved more than 70 hostages. The president said that Payne, who was in high school on 9/11, and his classmates learned about the attacks on the United States from a teacher who solemnly relayed what had happened.
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| Is Michael Gove really running the country behind the scenes? Posted: 11 Sep 2020 09:23 AM PDT  It is arguably no coincidence that Michael Gove is at the centre of a Cabinet split over the so-called "rule of six". As a member of Downing Street's most powerful committees, on both coronavirus and Brexit, the Cabinet Office minister is at the centre of pretty much everything these days. That may explain why the Tory tea room is abuzz with whispers that Boris Johnson's former leadership rival is the one "really" running the country behind the scenes. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster's influence was plain to see on Tuesday when the Prime Minister's coronavirus strategy committee was discussing the contentious ban on social gatherings of seven people or more. According to insiders, almost all members of the committee – including Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, and Priti Patel, the Home Secretary – were opposed to the move (watch Boris Johnson announcing it in the video below), arguing in favour of a "rule of eight" instead.
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| Nigeria's Kaduna passes law to castrate child rapists Posted: 11 Sep 2020 09:17 AM PDT  Lawmakers in Kaduna state want convicted rapists to be surgically castrated to prevent them raping again.
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| Daily US virus deaths decline, but trend may reverse in fall Posted: 11 Sep 2020 08:53 AM PDT  The number of daily U.S. deaths from the coronavirus is declining again after peaking in early August, but scientists warn that a new bout with the disease this fall could claim more lives. "We have to change the way we live until we have a vaccine," said Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. The U.S. has seen two distinct peaks in daily deaths.
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| Putin, Lukashenko to talk 'integration' amid Belarus protests Posted: 11 Sep 2020 08:46 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who is facing the largest protests of his rule, will discuss plans to further integrate their countries on Monday, the Kremlin said.
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| Images of 9/11 attack, porn interrupt voting machine hearing Posted: 11 Sep 2020 08:30 AM PDT  A federal hearing on a challenge to Georgia's voting machines was interrupted Friday when someone began posting video and symbols during the live Zoom session, including images from the Sept. 11 attacks, a swastika and pornography. During testimony by a voting machine company executive, at least two people — one with the user name Osama — began posting rapidly changing videos and still images, some accompanied by music, by sharing their screens with the video conference. The hearing in the long-running fight over Georgia's voting machines began Thursday afternoon and continued Friday.
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| Russian hacking group blamed for US election meddling is doing it again, Microsoft says Posted: 11 Sep 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Groups from China, Iran, and Russia have reportedly attacked the Biden and Trump campaigns
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| Russian Dissident Survives Suspected Assassination Attempt in Finland Posted: 11 Sep 2020 08:09 AM PDT  A suspected assassin has reportedly been detained in connection with an attack against a Russian exile. Musa Lomaev says he survived what appears to be the latest in a string of brazen attacks, two of them fatal, against dissidents in Europe who have railed against the brutal Kremlin-backed ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.Kadyrov, a ruthless strongman who has previously discussed his willingness to die for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly been accused of ordering torture, the detention of gay men, and assassination attempts on his critics. Although he has always denied those allegations, he is also known to make frequent and violent threats against anyone who dares to criticize him.Four of the Russian exiles who have been targeted in Europe this year have one main thing in common—they had been vocally critical of the notorious ruler of Chechnya, a republic of south eastern Russia. Two of them, Imran Aliyev and Mamikhan Umarov, were killed. A third, Tumso Abdurakhmanov, was able to overpower his would-be attacker in Sweden, and survived.Russian Teen Forced to Rape Himself on Camera for Criticizing 'Putin's Soldier'On Friday, Finnish authorities reportedly arrested a suspect in connection to another possible assassination attempt on Lomaev, a fourth Chechen blogger. According to Finnish station Radio Liberty, Lomaev claims a suspect was detained on Thursday after, he says, a price-tag of $500,000 was placed on his head.Lomaev runs a YouTube channel where he posts videos criticizing the Kadyrov regime, and says that he escaped Russia after being kidnapped and tortured in 2004 by the police, who accused him of carrying out terrorist acts against the government. As yet, there are no further details on the reported attempt on his life.Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported the assassination of Chechen blogger Mamikhan Umarov. He was reportedly killed two days after posting a video on YouTube goading Kadyrov into murdering him, in which he said: "Come and stop me!... Send your toughest guy, I'll tear him a new one." He was shot three times on the outskirts of Vienna, and two Russians were later detained.Kadyrov tried to deflect accusations of his government's involvement by claiming western intelligence services were killing Chechen exiles in an attempt to damage his image. "Don't become puppets, take care of your families. Otherwise the same fate awaits you, and they will blame Kadyrov and his team," he wrote, according to the FT.'Putin's Soldier' Ramzan Kadyrov Threatens Vengeance Against Mike PompeoEarlier in the year, in January, the 44-year-old blogger Imran Aliev was murdered in a hotel room in Lille, France—he had received a reported 135 stab wounds. French police investigating the murder later identified a man who traveled with the victim from Belgium, then fled to Russia after the killing, as the chief suspect.A police official told Business Insider at the time, "We have also collected intelligence about the man that indicates he works closely with Kadyrov, which continues to confirm our suspicion that this was a politically motivated murder linked to Aliev's dissident activities."Tumso Abdurakhmanov, who survived his attack, posted a video of himself standing over the bloodied body of his hammer-wielding assassin. When questioned, the man told Abdurakhmanov, "They have my mother." The head of the Chechen parliament had previously declared a "blood feud" against Abdurakhmanov.Chechnya became one of world's worst human rights violators under Kadyrov, who used Kremlin money to rebuild the republic and has largely been given the freedom to rule how he wants as long as he remains loyal to Putin. Kadyrov previously said he's "ready to die" for Putin and has described himself as Putin's "foot soldier."Earlier this week, The Daily Beast reported that a teenager in Chechnya was forced to strip naked and make a horrific "apology" video after daring to criticize the Kadyrov regime.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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| EU talks to resume as UK denies burning Brexit bridges Posted: 11 Sep 2020 08:03 AM PDT  Britain's government vowed on Friday to press on with troubled EU talks, despite rejecting an ultimatum to withdraw Brexit legislation that has sparked a rebellion from outraged Conservatives in its own ranks.
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| Poll: Pandemic takes toll on mental health of young adults Posted: 11 Sep 2020 07:59 AM PDT  The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety. A majority of Americans ages 18 through 34 — 56% — say they have at least sometimes felt isolated in the past month, compared with about 4 in 10 older Americans, according to the latest COVID Response Tracking Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Twenty-five percent of young adults rate their mental health as fair or poor, compared with 13% of older adults, while 56% of older adults say their mental health is excellent or very good, compared with just 39% of young adults.
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| Germany agrees to aid Russians probing poisoning of Putin opponent Alexei Navalny Posted: 11 Sep 2020 07:24 AM PDT  Germany agreed Friday to aid the Russian police investigation of the poisoning of Vladimir Putin's leading political opponent. Alexei Navalny, 44, remains at a German hospital, where doctors found "unequivocal evidence" that he was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent. Berlin state prosecutors said in a tweet that they have been commissioned to provide legal assistance to Russia and information on Navalny's state of health, "subject to his consent."
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| Israeli PM backs down after uproar over private plane Posted: 11 Sep 2020 06:46 AM PDT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday scrapped plans to fly to Washington with his family on a private plane and said he would instead travel with the official delegation. The reversal came after Israeli media reported that Netanyahu, his wife and two sons would be taking a separate flight to Washington for the White House ceremony marking the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Netanyahu, who was indicted on corruption charges last year, has long faced criticism over his family's lavish lifestyle.
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| Meet Maroš Šefčovič, the steely former communist who imposed the EU's Brexit deadline Posted: 11 Sep 2020 06:45 AM PDT  Before he arrived in London on Thursday to set the British Government an end-of-month deadline to drop the Internal Markets Bill, few people in the UK had heard of Maroš Šefčovič. The towering, basketball-loving Slovak is Michael Gove's opposite number on the joint committee for the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement. The committee is tasked with making sure that the provisions of the Brexit treaty – and especially the provisions designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland – are in force and on time on January 1. When it became clear that the UK planned to breach some of those clauses, Brussels sent for Mr Šefčovič (see video below).
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| Sudan floods kill over 100, threaten archaeological site Posted: 11 Sep 2020 06:43 AM PDT |
| Comforting families, warning foes: Biden, Trump mark 9/11 Posted: 11 Sep 2020 06:06 AM PDT  President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden marked the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on Friday at memorial services where their differences in style couldn't have been more sharply on display. As Biden approached those who'd lost loved ones at Ground Zero and shared the pain of his own losses, Trump vowed that "America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back," speaking at the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, site where hijacked Flight 93 crashed after passengers rushed the cockpit. Biden also visited Shanksville later in the day, laying a wreath at the memorial and meeting with families, but the two did not cross paths.
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| Russia published the results of its COVID-19 vaccine — and they don’t live up to the hype Posted: 11 Sep 2020 06:00 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin recently announced that a team of Russian scientists had developed a COVID-19 vaccine and that it had been approved for use by the regulators – at least, in Russia. The results of the phase one and two human trials of this vaccine have just been published in The Lancet. The vaccine "platform" used in this study used adenoviruses.
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| Moroccan police: IS cell dismantled, was plotting attacks Posted: 11 Sep 2020 05:39 AM PDT |
| Poll: Pandemic takes toll on mental health of young adults Posted: 11 Sep 2020 05:20 AM PDT  The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety. A majority of Americans ages 18 through 34 — 56% — say they have at least sometimes felt isolated in the past month, compared with about 4 in 10 older Americans, according to the latest COVID Response Tracking Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Twenty-five percent of young adults rate their mental health as fair or poor, compared with 13% of older adults, while 56% of older adults say their mental health is excellent or very good, compared with just 39% of young adults.
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| Global Magnetic Field Sensors Industry Posted: 11 Sep 2020 05:07 AM PDT |
| Virus spiking in eastern Europe; Hungary drafts 'war plan' Posted: 11 Sep 2020 04:57 AM PDT  The number of new confirmed coronavirus cases spiked Friday in parts of eastern Europe, with Hungary and the Czech Republic registering all-time daily highs. Signs of the pandemic's resurgence were also evident in Britain and the Netherlands. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his government was drafting a "war plan" to defend against the second wave of the pandemic.
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| Would Trump Act More Presidential in a Second Term? Come On! Posted: 11 Sep 2020 04:43 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- What would a second presidential term for Donald Trump look like, anyway?Let's suppose he wins in November, and let's assume the election winds up a lot like 2016. This time, he's even farther behind in the polls before Election Day, but has a well-timed surge as Nov. 3 approaches. And while he falls well short in the popular vote, he once again squeezes by in the electoral college, by a smaller margin than his final 304-to-227 electoral-vote edge over Hillary Clinton in 2016. I'll further assume that his authoritarian bluster remains little more than noise.(We can argue about whether it has become standard operating procedure for Republicans to undermine the legitimacy of elections, and can discuss the things Trump has already done to use the machinery of government for electoral purposes and his welcoming of foreign interference, and I don't mean to minimize any of that. But for the sake of argument let's say that despite those things, most of the public and the Democrats accept the election results as they did in 2016).So he wins by a narrow margin, while presumably once again calling it a landslide. Democrats retain their House majority and gain in the Senate, but 50 or 51 Republican senators remain in the majority. What would a second term look like?A second-term Trump would almost certainly be like the first-term Trump, except more so. Having felt vindicated — again! — he'd be more convinced than ever that he is correct about everything and that everyone else is wrong. So in that sense, he would be a lot less constrained.What that means for governing the nation, however, isn't obvious. After all, Trump isn't even pretending to have a policy agenda as he runs for office this time. He makes lots of claims that things are going to be terrific as long as his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, isn't elected, but hardly any about what he would do. Trump can't seem to recite a campaign promise without claiming that he's already achieved it.It's possible that a second-term Trump would be the Trump who violently suppressed racial justice protests at Lafayette Park and in other ways followed in the footsteps of the authoritarian world leaders he admires. At the very least, we should expect some ugliness targeted at those he considers his enemies.I suspect, however, that what Trump would be most eager to do after winning re-election would be:Brag a lot about his historic victory; Play golf with his rich friends and celebrities and watch even more cable television news; Tweet more insults and more opinions about more things; Bark out orders and hold more signing ceremonies with even less concern about whether there's any follow-up; Be more aggressive and more overt about using the presidency to enrich himself; Get back to holding rallies so his fans can adore him.In other words, he'd be even less focused on doing the actual job than he was during his first term, and even less able to influence events when he tried. His administration would be even more a maze of personal fiefdoms, with those who stay in their jobs and know how to work the bureaucracy able to get more done without presidential interference. Coherent responses to urgent policy challenges would be less likely, which is saying something. A White House that can't return a phone call to a governor when her state is on fire within two months of an election is going to be even less concerned about such things when the president no longer has to worry about voters at all.Since all of that was a formula for unpopularity in his first term, he would probably be at least as unpopular in his second — especially given that he'd be even less likely to believe any polls (and would convince himself, as he did after 2016, that his minority victory resulted from brilliant strategy and proved how much most people loved him). That would almost certainly lead to another midterm electoral debacle for Republican senators, representatives and governors. It could also lead to a second impeachment — and an impeachment with a Democratic majority in the Senate could be a long, brutal affair.Remember, presidential weakness is dangerous. Under this scenario, Trump would be even weaker than he is now, and that can be a threat to democracy even without a president who seems to have such admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Of course, it's possible that I'm speculating too optimistically and that Trump would behave more like an authoritarian.What's a lot harder to imagine is that he'd behave more like a normal president in a second term: That he'll organize his White House professionally, nominate competent experts for executive branch positions, develop policy ideas and fight for them in Congress and within the bureaucracy, fulfill the position of head of state for the entire nation, and comport himself in a dignified manner as befits elected officials in a republic. No, I can't see that in the cards at all.1\. Rick Hasen on why, if Trump wins and many consider his victory illegitimate, he has only himself to blame.2\. Dan Drezner on Ben Sasse's ideas about reforming the Senate.3\. Bryn Rosenfeld, Samuel Greene, Jeremy Morris, Grigore Pop-Eleches and Graeme Robertson at the Monkey Cage on Putin's weakening popular support.4\. Clare Malone on Trump and older voters.5\. Jonathan Chait on Trump's TV binging.6\. And my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O'Brien explains why Trump talked to Bob Woodward.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Big in Japan: UK announces first major post-Brexit trade deal Posted: 11 Sep 2020 04:17 AM PDT  Britain on Friday announced its first major post-Brexit trade agreement -- a deal with Japan -- as its negotiations with the European Union become increasingly fractious.
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| COVID creeps into a sprawling Syrian refugee camp in Jordan Posted: 11 Sep 2020 04:07 AM PDT  Testing and precautions ramped up after U.N. refugee agency confirms 1st cases at Zaatari camp, home to some 77,000 displaced Syrians.
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| 10 things you need to know today: September 11, 2020 Posted: 11 Sep 2020 03:55 AM PDT |
| EU says will consider next Brexit steps after UK's end-month deadline Posted: 11 Sep 2020 03:30 AM PDT |
| Apparel group urges US to lead multinational campaign against forced labour in Xinjiang Posted: 11 Sep 2020 02:30 AM PDT  A group representing some of the largest US and international apparel companies has called on Washington to convince other countries to pressure China to end forced labour in its Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.An official of the American Apparel and Footwear Association - which represents The Gap, Versace, Jimmy Choo and other brands - said on Thursday that more countries must join diplomatic efforts to halt forced labour in the region."The United States has done nothing to bring Europe along, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea," Nate Herman, the association's senior vice-president of policy, said on Thursday in an online discussion hosted by the US-China Business Council.Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.Herman added that the US needed to "try and bring those other countries, bringing the UN, bringing other international institutions, into this discussion".Some of the association's members, such as PVH Corp - owner of the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands - have faced criticism that their products may have involved forced labour from Xinjiang.PVH announced last year that it added the area as a jurisdiction subject to its "restricted country policy", meaning that "we do not, and prohibit our licensees from, producing finished goods in Xinjiang"."As part of our ongoing, long-term supply chain strategy, we have been communicating for the last six years that we are reducing our manufacturing, textile and cotton footprint in China and increasing our verticality in other manufacturing locations," PVH said.Leading export sectors from China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Image: Centre for Strategic and International Studies alt=Leading export sectors from China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Image: Centre for Strategic and International StudiesAs US-China relations have deteriorated in recent years, China's treatment of the Uygurs, an ethnic Muslim minority based mostly in the region, has become one of the most contentious issues.The United Nations, among other institutions, has accused the Chinese government of holding some 1 million Uygurs and other ethnic Muslims in detention camps in the area. Earlier this summer, the US Treasury Department sanctioned senior Chinese officials and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a quasi-government conglomerate controlled by Beijing, for their "connection to serious human rights abuse" in Xinjiang.The complexity of the supply chain from cotton, fabric or other inputs to finished product makes it difficult for companies to determine whether products they make in China involve forced labour in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region (XUAR). Many manufacturers on China's east coast or elsewhere in the country have production facilities in the region.China is the world's largest producer of cotton yarn, and most of the product "likely predominantly uses cotton from the XUAR, but may also contain imported yarn to achieve the desired quality", according to a July report by Amy Lehr, director and senior fellow at the Human Rights Initiative at the Washington-based think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies.China has repeatedly denied any mistreatment of Uygurs in what it calls vocational training centres, which it says have been successful in combating extremism and violence.The Xinjiang sanctions and ban on imports of goods produced with forced labour, taken together, gives the US the strongest stance on the issue. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went so far as to call China's treatment of Uygurs "the stain of the century".However, analysts including Lehr agree that more needs to be done in concert with US allies.The US "hasn't been consistent and it hasn't made our traditional allies feel secure and coming out as well, which they know is going to be really high risk if they do it," Lehr said in the online discussion on Thursday.Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has hit back at allegations of Uygur mistreatment, characterising internment camps in Xinjiang as efforts to fight separatism and terrorism, rather than a matter of human rights or religion."It is obviously a very challenging issue for any government to engage on because China is very important and this is a priority for China," Lehr said. "And so, when governments do say something, they tend to face consequences."This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| UN calls for release of human rights activists in Cambodia Posted: 11 Sep 2020 02:27 AM PDT  A group of women in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, held a small but spirited protest Friday demanding the release of their detained husbands, as the United Nations human rights office joined two international rights groups in condemning a recent wave of arrests of dissidents and activists in the Southeast Asian nation. The Geneva-based office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called for Cambodia to release detained human rights and environmental activists, saying at least two dozen have been arrested because of their work in recent weeks. It said about half of those detained since July 31, when prominent labor union activist Rong Chhun was arrested, have been released "reportedly after signing agreements under duress to discontinue human rights activities."
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| UK agrees first major post-Brexit trade deal with Japan Posted: 11 Sep 2020 01:56 AM PDT  Britain on Friday said it had secured its first major post-Brexit trade agreement -- a free trade deal with Japan -- the day after bitter wranglings with the European Union.
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| Beirut fire brought under control after terrifying nation Posted: 11 Sep 2020 01:44 AM PDT  White smoke rose from the smoldering wreckage of Beirut's port on Friday hours after firefighters extinguished a huge fire that terrified the city's residents five weeks after a massive blast killed nearly 200 people and destroyed parts of Lebanon's capital. It wasn't clear what caused the raging fire that broke out Thursday afternoon and covered the city with dark smoke and toxic fumes for hours, as fire fighters and army helicopters struggled to bring it under control.
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| UN expert: Pandemic's worst impacts on poverty yet to come Posted: 11 Sep 2020 01:32 AM PDT  The United Nations independent expert on poverty is warning that the worst impacts from the coronavirus pandemic on poverty are yet to come, and that measures taken by governments to protect people so far have been insufficient. "The social safety nets put into place are full of holes," said Olivier De Schutter, a Belgian legal scholar appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council as special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. "These current measures are generally short-term, the funding is insufficient and many people will inevitably fall between the cracks," De Schutter said.
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| Greece seeks shelter for thousands after refugee camp fire Posted: 11 Sep 2020 12:52 AM PDT  Authorities on Friday sought to shelter thousands of refugees and migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos after fires destroyed the squalid and overcrowded Moria camp that for years symbolized Europe's biggest migration policy failings. The structures were flown in by military helicopters to forestall protests by Lesbos' permanent residents angry at their island's protracted use as a holding center for thousands arriving from nearby Turkey. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said authorities have "moved very fast" to construct a temporary facility.
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| Global Neurorehabilitation Devices Industry Posted: 11 Sep 2020 12:27 AM PDT |
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