| Virus puts Hong Kong protests on ice. Will they return? Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:51 PM PST  The crowd lining up recently on a cold, dark Hong Kong street wasn't part of the anti-government protest movement that rocked the semi-autonomous Chinese territory for months. The city's often-tumultuous street protests had already slowed over the past two months. Now they have ground to an almost complete halt as attention focuses on how to avoid a recurrence of the SARS pandemic, which killed about 300 people in Hong Kong in 2002-03.
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| Yang, who created buzz with freedom dividend, ends 2020 bid Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:48 PM PST  Democrat Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur who created buzz for his presidential campaign by talking about his love of math and championing a universal basic income that would give every American adult $1,000 per month, suspended his 2020 bid on Tuesday. "I am the math guy, and it is clear to me from the numbers that we are not going to win this race," Yang said in front of a crowd of supporters as votes in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary were being counted. Yang announced his departure from the race shortly before Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet did Tuesday night, bringing the Democratic field to single digits.
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| Andrew Yang Drops Out of Democratic Presidential Campaign Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:23 PM PST |
| US, German spies plundered global secrets via Swiss encryption firm: report Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:12 PM PST  US and German intelligence services raked in the top secret communications of governments around the world for decades through their hidden control of a top encryption company, Crypto AG, US, German and Swiss media reported Tuesday. The Swiss company was a top supplier of devices for encoding communications to some 120 countries from after World War II to the beginning of this century, including Iran, South American governments, and India and Pakistan. Unknown to those governments, Crypto was secretly owned by the US Central Intelligence Agency together with Germany's BND Federal Intelligence Service.
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| Trump’s Iran Man Met With a Former Terror Group’s Rep After Soleimani Strike Posted: 11 Feb 2020 04:12 PM PST  The Trump administration's top official overseeing Iran policy met with a representative of a controversial Iranian dissident group weeks after a U.S. strike killed Iran's top military leader.Brian Hook, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, met on January 31 with Robert G. Joseph, a former senior State official who now represents the National Council of Resistance of Iran, according to a foreign agent filing that Joseph submitted to the Justice Department this week. The NCRI is the political arm of the People's Mujahedin of Iran—commonly known by Farsi acronym, MEK—a group that seeks regime change in Iran and was on the U.S. government's official list of foreign terrorist organizations until 2012.Joseph's meeting with Hook came just a few weeks after a U.S. airstrike killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran's top military commander. The MEK had long seen Soleimani as one of Iran's foremost villains. In a blog post hailing his death, the NCRI described him as "an infamous symbol of the regime's intimidation and murder." Rudy Giuliani Calls Former Iranian Terrorists 'My People'Soleimani was "directly responsible for killing some of my MEK people," Rudy Giuliani, a long-time ally of the group, told The Daily Beast in January. "We don't like him very much."Yet, in the wake of that strike, Pompeo circulated a memo barring American officials from meeting with representatives of the MEK, citing its controversial history—it allegedly played a role in the assassination of three U.S. Army officers and three more civilian contractors—and poor public standing in Iran.Neither Hook nor the State Department press office responded to requests for additional information on the meeting. Joseph also did not respond to a request for comment.The meeting with Hook was one of three of U.S. government contacts reported in Joseph's semi-annual filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, but the only one that took place after the Soleimani strike. Joseph also reported meeting with Hook in September, and the following month with Tim Morrison, a former White House National Security Council official who oversaw policy in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Morrison declined to comment on the meeting.Joseph's FARA filing does not include any details on what was discussed at each of those meetings. In general, he told the Justice Department, he worked to "provide advice to NCRI officials on a range of issues, including: how best to counter false narratives about NCRI; how to improve the reach and effectiveness of the NCRI work on Iran's sponsorship ofterrorism, regional aggression and its nuclear program; and how to advance the cause of building a free and democratic Iran."'OK, Now What?': Inside Team Trump's Scramble to Sell the Soleimani Hit to AmericaJoseph also "provid[ed] advice to strengthen the protection and security of former Iranian refugee residents from the former U.S. military camp at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq, who are now residing outside Tirana, Albania," according to his Justice Department filing.The NCRI is headquartered in Paris and staffed by Iranian expatriates and exiles, many of whom have faced brutal treatment by the Iranian regime. The group's website describes it as the MEK's "umbrella coalition."The MEK has long worked to ingratiate itself with key U.S. policymakers, chiefly foreign policy hawks who share a distrust of the Iranian regime. It has forged ties with a number of officials who have served in or advised the Trump administration, including Giuliani and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.Pompeo himself spoke at an event that included MEK representatives last year. But in January, after Soleimani was killed, he cautioned diplomats against engaging with either the MEK or the NCRI. "Direct U.S. government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior," Pompeo wrote in a memo sent to every U.S. embassy.Days later, State appeared to walk back those comments. It sent a cable to U.S. diplomats, as reported by The Daily Beast at the time, that did not mention the MEK or the NCRI by name, but left the door open to engagement with the groups. It simply advised U.S. officials to "use good judgement" in taking such meetings."Posts should welcome opportunities to meet with and learn from members of the Iranian diaspora community," advised the cable, which explicitly superseded Pompeo's memo. "After 40 years of repression and violence at the hands of the Ayatollahs, the Iranian people's pride in their history has not diminished nor has their resolve to celebrate it in the face of the Islamic republic's abuses."Meet the General Who Ran Soleimani's Spies, Guns and AssassinsJoseph is a longtime NCRI ally, and signed up to lobby directly for the group in January 2019. He told DOJ at the time that he planned to "interact with Albanian officials, U.S. Embassy, State Department staff, White House, and any other U.S. personnel as required, as well as UN officials." He's being paid $15,000 per month for his services.Prior to his private sector work, Joseph oversaw nuclear nonproliferation and arms control policies as a senior official in George W. Bush's State Department. He took a hard line on Iran in that position, according to contemporaneous reports.More recently, at an NCRI event in March 2019, Joseph expressed his hope that Tehran's government would soon fall. "The efforts that are being made by...many in this room, I am confident, will result in the rebirth of the great Persian nation and light replacing the darkness," he said. "The darkness that is brought to us by the brutal, repressive dictatorship of the Mullahs."—with additional reporting by Erin BancoRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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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| Virus Cuts Off North Korea’s Best Route Around Trump’s Sanctions Posted: 11 Feb 2020 03:30 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- North Korea's decision to shut the border with China to avoid the coronavirus will set back its nascent economic recovery, renewing pressure on Kim Jong Un to return to nuclear negotiations with Donald Trump.A jump in fuel prices, a dip in port activity and the suspension of train and air links show the early impact as reports emerge of the first virus case in North Korea. In recent days, Seoul-based NK News reported a 36% jump in diesel prices and diminished activity at the port of Nampho, along with new quarantine procedures.The closed borders will cut off foreign tourism that provides the cash-starved state with hard currency and further limit the trickle of trade it has with the outside world. The economic blow -- if sustained -- might make it tougher for Kim to keep pushing back against Trump's demands.Before the virus complicated matters, things had been looking up: Reforms, a bumper harvest and sanctions-dodging were helping North Korea claw back some of the lost growth triggered by tougher United Nations trade restrictions and a drought.The UN Conference on Trade and Development estimated that the economy expanded by 1.8% last year, following its biggest slump in decades in 2018. That view tallied with a surge in China's imports that suggested an increase in economic activity and trade.Global sanctions piled on North Korea in 2017 for its nuclear and missiles tests have slammed its trade and access to vital resources such as oil. That hasn't stopped Kim from building his nuclear arsenal and finding ways to evade the economic restrictions, such as the illegal trading of commodities via high-seas transfers between ships, the U.S. and others have said.North Korea stepped up its illegal exports of coal last year, with most of those deliveries headed for China, according to a confidential UN report reviewed Monday by Bloomberg News. Pyongyang raked in $370 million of shipments from January through August alone, a panel monitoring the enforcement of sanctions on North Korea said in the report to the Security Council, citing evidence provided by an unidentified member state.Prior to the virus lockdown, Kim had been pushing back against Trump's pressure. In a speech to ruling party leaders on Dec. 31 -- the same day reports of the new virus first emerged in China -- Kim denounced the U.S.'s "gangster-like acts" and said he was no longer bound by a two-year freeze on tests of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.A resumption of major tests would undercut Trump's claim that his unprecedented decision to meet with Kim in June 2018 made the U.S. safer, just as he gears up for a tough re-election fight. Still, Kim has so far refrained from provocations that could blow up his relationship with Trump.North Korean foreign ministry adviser Kim Kye Gwan said last month that Pyongyang would never propose trading a key nuclear facility in exchange for UN sanctions relief, according to state media. He added that it would be "stupid" to expect ties between Trump and Kim to help restart talks.Even before the virus, there was a limit to how much Kim could do to shore up the economy without more access to foreign capital. One study after another has suggested that Kim would eventually face a economic crisis if he was unable to secure enough hard currency to sustain a push forward with development."Kim wants sanctions lifted because he wants high-powered economic growth to underpin his power grip, but he has no reason to risk his survival by giving in to U.S. demands to denuclearize first," said Lee Jong-seok, a former South Korean unification minister. "Kim won't budge, no matter the pressure."\--With assistance from David Wainer.To contact the reporters on this story: Sam Kim in Seoul at skim609@bloomberg.net;Jon Herskovitz in Tokyo at jherskovitz@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Jackson at pjackson53@bloomberg.net, ;Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Malcolm ScottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 5 accused of trying to trade in sanctioned Iranian oil Posted: 11 Feb 2020 03:14 PM PST |
| Actor Jussie Smollett faces 6 new charges in Chicago Posted: 11 Feb 2020 02:17 PM PST  Actor Jussie Smollett was indicted Tuesday for a second time on charges of lying to police about a racist and anti-gay attack he allegedly staged on himself last year in downtown Chicago. The indictment came from a special prosecutor who was appointed after Cook County prosecutors dropped the same charges last March. Smollett, who is black and gay, was originally charged with disorderly conduct last February for allegedly staging the attack and lying about it to investigators.
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| Boris Johnson Backs $129 Billion HS2 U.K. Rail Plan Despite Rising Costs Posted: 11 Feb 2020 02:14 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson committed tens of billions of pounds for a controversial new high speed rail line linking London with cities to the north, despite soaring costs and mounting anger from his own Conservative Party colleagues.The High Speed 2 (HS2) development will become Europe's largest infrastructure project but it has suffered delays and criticism of its management, with spiraling costs estimated to rise potentially to more than 100 billion pounds ($129 billion). Trains may not start running until 2031. HS2 Contractors, Bus Operators Rise on U.K. Government Plans Johnson believes the new line stretching from the capital to Birmingham and then on to Manchester and Leeds is vital to revive the economy in "left behind" communities that backed Brexit and voted Conservative in last December's election."Our generation faces a historic choice," Johnson said as he announced his decision in Parliament on Tuesday. "We can consign the next generation to overcrowding, standing up in the carriageways, or we can have the guts to take a decision, no matter how difficult and controversial, that will deliver prosperity to every part of the country."U.K. High-Speed Rail Project Wins Backing From ChancellorThe project is highly sensitive politically for Johnson's government. Backers of the plan say it will cut journey times, increase capacity, create jobs and help link northern and central parts of England to the wealthier south. Boosting the country's former industrial heartlands is Johnson's key political mission now that the U.K. has left the EU.First-Time ToriesHe won a majority in Parliament largely thanks to persuading voters in these areas to back him, with some traditionally Labour-supporting districts electing Conservatives for the first time.But many Tory members of Parliament oppose HS2 because the line will cut through their districts, causing severe disruption for thousands of constituents, and wrecking sensitive environments including ancient woodland and nature reserves. The project managers at HS2 Ltd have been attacked for delays and for failing to keep costs down."HS2 is unloved, unwanted and has been grossly mismanaged," Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen told Johnson. "This could well be an albatross around this government and the country's neck moving forward." Other senior Tories including Graham Brady and former cabinet minister Jeremy Wright also spoke against the project. "We're totally in favor of a transport revolution that cuts pollution and carbon emissions, but bulldozing through irreplaceable wildlife and nature sites is not the way to go about it," Greenpeace U.K. executive director John Sauven said. "Over 100 ancient woodlands will be damaged or destroyed along with 33 sites of special scientific interests and hundreds of local wildlife sites."Ministerial OversightJohnson said the government commissioned a review of HS2, which concluded the case for going ahead was clear, despite the problems so far. He promised to reassess the costs and will appoint a government minister with the full time job of overseeing the project."This country is being held back by our inadequate infrastructure," Johnson said. "Efficient transport can clean the air and cut pollution and get cars off the road," he told the Commons. "We can shorten your commute and give you more time with your family and increase productivity -- and bring business and investment to left-behind communities."HS2 trains will reach speeds of 225 miles (362 kilometers) per hour, faster than most other high-speed lines in the world. On the High Speed 1 Channel Tunnel line, Eurostar trains to and from continental Europe reach 186 mph, while domestic services attain 140 mph. HS2 will also triple north-south rail capacity, with as many as 14 trains an hour using the line.The decision to proceed with HS2 was taken after the Oakervee Report into the project concluded that the full Y-shaped network should be built.The 130-page report following a study led by civil engineer Douglas Oakervee dismisses proposals such as building only part of the line, starting it from Manchester to boost the northern economy, or halting it on the fringes of London as impractical or poor value for money.High CostHS2 may now cost 87.7 billion pounds at 2019 prices, up from the budgeted 62.4 billion pounds, the report warns, which allowing for further overruns of up to 20% could mean a final bill of 105 billion pounds. The London-Birmingham line would open by 2031, slipping from 2026, with Manchester and Leeds sections completed in 2040 rather than 2033.The terms of reference for a review to make the northern sections of HS2 properly integrated with the rest of the rail network and other forms of transport will be published this week, Slack said. The government's funding envelope for HS2 is between 72 billion and 98 billion pounds, a number Slack said also covered contingency for "anything unexpected."The biggest HS2 contracts are for the construction of the line and its stations, with at least 11.5 billion pounds of work handed out across 27 tenders as of August.Balfour Beatty Plc, Britain's biggest civil engineer, leads the way, holding contracts with Vinci SA of France to design and build bridges, tunnels, embankments and viaducts for the northern half of the first phase of the line, valued at about 2.5 billion pounds.The same two companies, together with Paris-based SYSTRA SA, have been engaged to build a 1 billion-pound hub interchange between HS2, the London subway and the main line to southwest England at Old Oak Common, London.(Adds reaction)\--With assistance from Stuart Biggs, Thomas Penny, Olivia Konotey-Ahulu and Tiago Ramos Alfaro.To contact the reporters on this story: Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.net;Christopher Jasper in London at cjasper@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Stuart BiggsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| AP VoteCast: After Iowa, many NH Dems worry about fairness Posted: 11 Feb 2020 02:02 PM PST  Only 14% of New Hampshire Democrats said they were "very confident" that the process for picking a presidential nominee would be fair, a sign of possible doubts lingering in voters' minds at the state's Tuesday primary. The skepticism was clearest among Bernie Sanders' backers, with about 6 in 10 saying they had little or no confidence in the Democratic primary process. The results from AP VoteCast suggest that Sanders' younger and generally more liberal supporters distrust their fellow Democrats, a potential reflection of the Vermont senator losing the 2016 nomination to Hillary Clinton.
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| Klobuchar faces tough questioning in case of juvenile lifer Posted: 11 Feb 2020 12:48 PM PST  As voters made their way to the New Hampshire polls, Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar faced pointed questions Tuesday about her oversight of a high-profile murder case in which a black teen was sentenced to life after a flawed police investigation. The back-and-forth between Hostin and Klobuchar, the former top prosecutor in Minneapolis, concerned an Associated Press investigation into the case of Myon Burrell. Burrell was 16 when he was apprehended in the 2002 death of an 11-year-old African American girl, killed by a stray bullet while doing her homework.
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| Teacher unions: Children terrified by active shooter drills Posted: 11 Feb 2020 12:17 PM PST  The nation's two largest teachers unions want schools to revise or eliminate active shooter drills, asserting Tuesday that they can harm students' mental health and that there are better ways to prepare for the possibility of a school shooting. The American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association joined with the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund in calling for an end to unannounced drills or drills that simulate gun violence. "Everywhere I travel, I hear from parents and educators about active shooter drills terrifying students, leaving them unable to concentrate in the classroom and unable to sleep at night," said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association.
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| Warren betting that getting personal can help her rebound Posted: 11 Feb 2020 12:15 PM PST  Elizabeth Warren still "has a plan" for everything. Being a proud policy nerd helped catapult the Massachusetts senator into front-runner status last summer but may have carried her as far as it can.
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| US to seek more help from NATO to counter Islamic State Posted: 11 Feb 2020 12:12 PM PST  US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday he is looking to NATO allies for more help countering the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq and in bolstering U.S. defense efforts in the Middle East more broadly. In an interview while flying to Brussels to attend a NATO defense ministers meeting, Esper told reporters he wants NATO countries to do more to help Iraq's security forces. Esper is looking for ways to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Iraq so that some can be brought home to focus on longer-term challenges, particularly from China.
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| How the Iowa caucuses 'broke down in every way possible' Posted: 11 Feb 2020 11:48 AM PST  Days before the Iowa caucuses, Democratic Party activist Lindsey Ellickson prepared to run her Cedar Rapids precinct by downloading the new smartphone app designed to calculate and report results. With the world waiting to learn who won the nation's first presidential nominating contest, the Iowa Democratic Party would not release even partial results until 21 hours after residents began gathering in schools and churches to express their preferences. When results were released in batches in coming days, they were tainted by mistakes that required corrections and apparent math errors that may never be fixed.
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| Radical Iraqi cleric threatens to disavow PM designate Posted: 11 Feb 2020 11:32 AM PST  An influential Shiite preacher who heads a powerful political bloc in Iraq's Parliament threatened Tuesday to withdraw support for the candidate chosen by rival blocs as prime minister designate, indicating the formation of a new government was facing challenges. Muqtada al-Sadr, who heads the Sairoon bloc that garnered the most seats in parliament following the May 2018 election, said in a statement posted on social media that he was losing confidence in prime minister designate Mohammed Allawi and threatened to withdraw his support. Citing "partisan and sectarian pressure" interfering in the government formation process, al-Sadr said this has lead to a "lack of confidence" and "may even lead to declaring a disavowal" of Allawi's candidacy.
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| CIA controlled global encryption company for decades, says report Posted: 11 Feb 2020 11:26 AM PST  Swiss government orders inquiry after revelations Crypto AG was owned and operated by US and German intelligenceThe Swiss government has ordered an inquiry into a global encryption company based in Zug following revelations it was owned and controlled for decades by US and German intelligence.Encryption weaknesses added to products sold by Crypto AG allowed the CIA and its German counterpart, the BND, to eavesdrop on adversaries and allies alike while earning million of dollars from the sales, according the Washington Post and the German public broadcaster ZDF, based on the agencies' internal histories of the intelligence operation."It was the intelligence coup of the century," the CIA report concluded. "Foreign governments were paying good money to the US and West Germany for the privilege of having their most secret communications read by at least two (and possibly as many as five or six) foreign countries."The mention of five or six countries is probably a reference to the Five Eyes electronic intelligence sharing agreement between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.The operation, codenamed Thesaurus and then renamed Rubicon in 1980s, demonstrated the overwhelming intelligence value of being able to insert flaws into widely sold communications equipment. The CIA's success over many years is likely to reinforce current US suspicions of equipment made by the Chinese company Huawei.Neither China or the Soviet Union bought Crypto encryption devices, suspicious of the company's origins, but it was sold to more than 100 other countries.Carolina Bohren, a spokeswoman for the Swiss defence ministry, said in an emailed statement: "The events under discussion date back to 1945 and are difficult to reconstruct and interpret in the present day context."Bohren said that following media inquiries about the company, the Swiss government appointed a former federal supreme court judge, Niklaus Oberholzer, in January to "investigate and clarify the facts of the matter" and report back to the defence ministry in June.Meanwhile, Switzerland has suspended foreign sales of Crypto products.At their height, Operations Thesaurus and Rubicon provided the US with a powerful intelligence edge. When Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin were hosted by the former president Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1978 to negotiate an Egyptian-Israeli peace accord, the US was able to monitor all Sadat's communications with Cairo.Iran was also a Crypto customer, allowing CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on the revolutionary government in Tehran during the 1979 hostage crisis. US intelligence was also able to eavesdrop on Libyan officials congratulating each other on the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco.According to the CIA's history, the US passed on intercepted communications about Argentinian military plans to the UK during the Falklands war, exploiting Argentina's reliance on Crypto encryption equipment.The CIA and BND agreed the purchase of Crypto in 1970 but, fearing exposure, the BND sold its share of the company to the US in the early 1990s. According to the Washington Post, the CIA continued to exploit the company until 2018, when it sold the company's assets to two private companies.One of those companies, CyOne Security, which is run by former top Crypto employees, issued a statement saying it could not comment on Crypto's history."CyOne Security AG was founded in January 2018. The company operates exclusively in the Swiss market with a focus on state-of-the art security solutions for customers from the Swiss public sector," the statement said. "Since the start of its business activities, CyOne Security has been 100% owned by four Swiss private individuals. It is completely independent of the former Crypto AG. CyOne Security has no ties with any foreign intelligence services."The firm did not respond to follow-up questions over how it could be completely independent of Crypto, having inherited its top staff.Crypto's foreign sales business was sold to a Swedish entrepreneur, Andreas Linde. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment but expressed shock when informed by journalists last month about Crypto's history."If what you are saying is true, then absolutely I feel betrayed, and my family feels betrayed, and I feel there will be a lot of employees who will feel betrayed as well as customers," Linde was quoted as saying by the Washington Post, which described him as "visibly shaken".In a later interview, Linde said his company was checking all its products for hidden vulnerabilities."We have to make a cut as soon as possible with everything that has been linked to Crypto," he said.Crypto's origins lie in the great conflicts of the 20th century. Its founder, Boris Hagelin, was born in Russia but fled to Sweden during the Russian Revolution. He escaped to the US when the Nazis invaded Norway in 1940, and sold his portable encryption machine to US forces.In the US, Hagelin became friends with William Friedman, who is considered the father of American cryptology, and they remained close after Hagelin moved his company to Switzerland after the war. The two men made a secret agreement in 1951, in the Cosmos Club in Washington, to restrict sales of its sophisticated encryption products to countries approved by the US.When encryption technology evolved from mechanical to electronic in the 1960s, the NSA manipulated the algorithms used by Crypto devices, so they could be quickly decoded. The company started making two versions of its machines – secure models sold to friendly governments and rigged systems for everyone else – before being taken over outright by the CIA and the BND.The security of Crypto equipment began arousing suspicions after Ronald Reagan made public claims about US intercepts of Libyan officials involved in the 1986 bombing of the Berlin disco, La Belle. Iranian intelligence became suspicious and questioned a Crypto salesman, Hans Buehler, but took no action until about six years later, when they arrested Buehler as he was about to fly out of Tehran. Iran released him only after the company agreed to pay $1m, with funds provided by the BND.Most of Crypto's workforce was unaware of the company's secret, but in 1977, an engineer who had grown suspicious of its algorithms was fired after he traveled to Damascus and fixed the vulnerabilities in the firm's products operated by the Syrian government.The link between US intelligence and Crypto was first reported by the Baltimore Sun in 1995, leading several countries to stop buying from the company. Bizarrely, however, Iran continued to purchase Crypto equipment for several years. Asked why he had not asked more questions about the company he was buying, Linde, the new owner of Crypto International, said he viewed the allegations as "just rumours".
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| Feds: Ex-convict extorted college students for nearly $1M Posted: 11 Feb 2020 10:39 AM PST  An ex-convict accused of bilking several college students out of nearly $1 million and forcing some into prostitution or unpaid labor was arrested Tuesday on extortion and sex trafficking charges. Lawrence "Larry" Ray was previously known for his role in helping to send former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was a close confidant of Rudy Giuliani, to prison. Federal prosecutors said Ray, 60, used "physical, sexual and psychological abuse" to extort money from five different students at Sarah Lawrence College, a private liberal arts college outside New York City.
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| Palestinian chief and ex-Israeli PM show 2 sides can talk Posted: 11 Feb 2020 10:31 AM PST  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sat beside former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday and said he is ready to resume negotiations under an international umbrella on the peace deal they made significant progress on in 2008 — not on the Trump administration's plan that he said destroys a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Olmert said he thinks Abbas made a mistake in not accepting his 2008 peace plan.
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| Bloomberg in 2015 Saw Russia’s Point in Invading Ukraine Posted: 11 Feb 2020 10:07 AM PST  The oligarch running for the Democratic presidential nomination, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, appeared to rationalize Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine by referencing America's own maculate history of expansion and conquest. Bloomberg's remarks, flagged Tuesday by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, were made to the Aspen Institute in February 2015. Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea was about a year old at the time, and sparked a crisis in U.S.-Russian relations that has yet to relent. During the appearance, Bloomberg, referencing the host of geopolitical issues from Iran to China—and what he calls the "crazy Islamic world"—where Russia possessed influence, said, "You have to have Russia as an ally in these things." "Nobody thinks Russia should be in the Ukraine and trying to take land from an independent and sovereign country," Bloomberg said, meandering away from a question on the unique experience of being a mayor. "But if you really think about it," he continued, "what would America do if we had a contiguous country where a lot of people in that country wanted to be Americans. Do Texas and California ring a bell? We just went in and took it." Russia's ties to Ukraine are historic—Sevastopol, on the Black Sea, has been critical to the Russian navy since Catherine the Great's 18th-century invasion—but so is Ukraine's independent identity. Bloomberg glossed over the fact that the plebiscite in Crimea occurred after Russian soldiers, deniable as so-called "Little Green Men," had already occupied critical positions on the peninsula. The then-new U.S.-backed government in Kiev had declared the Russian-sponsored referendum a violation of Ukranian law, none of which Bloomberg mentioned. "OK, I'm not suggesting that Putin is doing a good thing, or that he should be allowed, but we did this," Bloomberg continued. "Two-hundred years ago, but we did this. You want a warm-water port? Guantanamo Bay ring a bell?"Guantanamo Bay, on Cuba's southwest coast, was for decades used as a coaling station by the U.S. Navy under lease by a compliant local government. Fidel Castro overthrew that government and insisted on a U.S. departure that Washington has refused for six decades despite the Navy no longer needing Guantanamo strategically. The U.S. sends the Cuban government rent checks, to honor the terms of the hundred-plus-year-old lease, that Castro refused to cash in protest of the U.S. refusal to depart. "Sphere of influence? One of the reasons that Putin has reacted the way he did is that there was a movement to have NATO be right on the Russian border," Bloomberg continued, analogizing Russia's rejection of NATO expansion to the U.S. refusal to tolerate Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, 90 miles off the Florida coast. NATO expansion in the '90s, the nadir of Russia's geopolitical influence since the days of Catherine if not Peter the Great, was not designed by the Clinton administration to subjugate Russia. But influential voices in Russia for a generation have nevertheless viewed it as a humiliation demanding redress, Putin included, given NATO's history as an explicit bulwark on Russian designs in Europe. What both Bloomberg and Putin overlooked is the appetite from former Soviet bloc countries, thanks to their experience of Russian domination, to join the western military alliance. Yet Bloomberg's remarks are likely to call into question his affinity for strongmen, something he shares with Donald Trump, the president he disdains and seeks to dislodge. Like Trump, the former mayor has praised China's Xi Jinping as "not a dictator"—Bloomberg's remarks came during Xi's repression of protests in Hong Kong—something that raised eyebrows considering his extensive business interests in China. Later in Bloomberg's Aspen remarks, he spoke about meeting with India's Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi to discuss a "non-profit consulting firm." Another similarity with Trump is audible in Bloomberg's 2015 remarks. The billionaire referenced Russia's "3000-mile border with the whole crazy Islamic world." "You've got to do something. Russia can't just go into an independent country and take it over," Bloomberg continued, cautioning that he was making an observation about the complexity of world affairs. "On the other hand, at the same time, the federal government [has] to understand, that you also need Russia for a lot of things that we want to do." Black Voters Turn to Mike BloombergRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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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| AP Interview: DM says Turkey won't pull out amid Syria push Posted: 11 Feb 2020 09:26 AM PST  Turkey's defense minister said Tuesday as many as four observation posts and two military positions are now in Syrian government-controlled territory as Syrian forces continue their advance into the last rebel stronghold, an offensive that has escalated tensions between Syria and Turkey. In an interview with The Associated Press, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that Turkey would not vacate any of its 12 observation posts in Idlib and warned that Turkish soldiers were under orders to retaliate forcefully to Syrian attacks on the military posts.
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| Trial team quits Roger Stone case in dispute over sentence Posted: 11 Feb 2020 09:17 AM PST  The four lawyers who prosecuted Roger Stone quit the case Tuesday after the Justice Department overruled them and said it would take the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it would seek for President Donald Trump's longtime ally and confidant. The departures raised immediate questions over whether Trump, who earlier in the day had blasted the original sentencing recommendation as "very horrible and unfair," had at least indirectly exerted his will on a Justice Department that he often views as an arm of the White House. The department said the decision to undo the sentencing recommendation was made Monday night — before Trump's tweet — and prosecutors had not spoken to the White House about it.
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| Merkel allies press for swift resolution of succession question Posted: 11 Feb 2020 09:12 AM PST |
| Done with homework: More than 200 schools in UAE cancel it Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:57 AM PST |
| U.K. Must Take Lead on Climate Change, Gove Says Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:47 AM PST |
| Epilepsy treatment side effect: New insights about the brain Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:45 AM PST  Though Genette Hofmann is still using her brain, last month she donated a bit of it — to science. Hofmann needed the surgery — her Seattle surgeon was looking deep into her brain, where he found the trigger for the epileptic seizures that had disrupted her life for 30 years. Research volunteers such as Ruth Nall, who made a different kind of contribution in a California hospital room, reading sentences aloud as a network of surgically implanted sensors kept close track of how her brain worked.
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| RPT-Palestinians' Abbas denounces U.S. peace proposal as gift to Israel Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:34 AM PST |
| Palestinians' Abbas denounces U.S. peace proposal as gift to Israel Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:31 AM PST |
| Bloomberg embraces stop and frisk in resurfaced 2015 audio Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:14 AM PST  The billionaire and former New York City mayor made the comments at a 2015 appearance at the Aspen Institute, as part of an overall defense of his support for the controversial "stop and frisk" policing tactic that has been found to disproportionately affect minorities. Bloomberg launched his presidential bid late last year with an apology for his support for the policy.
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| What Brexit fallout? Portugal poised to hit new investment record for export projects Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:01 AM PST |
| More US firms are boosting faith-based support for employees Posted: 11 Feb 2020 07:27 AM PST  It has become standard practice for U.S. corporations to assure employees of support regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation. There's now an intensifying push to ensure that companies are similarly supportive and inclusive when it comes to employees' religious beliefs. One barometer: More than 20% of the Fortune 100 have established faith-based employee resource groups, according to an AP examination and there's a high-powered conference taking place this week in Washington aimed at expanding those ranks.
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| Egypt's booming population officially hits 100 million Posted: 11 Feb 2020 07:09 AM PST  Egypt's fast-growing population hit 100 million Tuesday, the official statistics agency announced, presenting a pressing problem for an already overburdened country with limited resources. Egypt's population has tripled since 1960, with the annual growth rate peaking in 1987 at nearly 2.8%. Every day nearly 5,000 people are born in Egypt, the agency estimates.
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| US accuses Iran of building missiles through satellite bid Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:58 AM PST  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday accused Iran of honing its ballistic missile skills through a satellite launch and vowed to exert more pressure. Iran, which is enemy number one for President Donald Trump's administration, said Sunday that it had successfully launched a satellite but that it failed to reach orbit. Pompeo said the technology involved in a space launch was "virtually identical" to the knowhow for a long-range ballistic missile.
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| Palestinians demonstrate against Trump plan before Abbas UN speech Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:57 AM PST  Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated on Tuesday against the US peace plan, hours before president Mahmud Abbas was due to address the United Nations. An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 Palestinians gathered in central Ramallah, home of the Palestinian government, for a demonstration led by prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, AFP correspondents said.
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| Power outage briefly halts operations at Israeli gas rig Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:51 AM PST |
| Merkel Feels Heat After Allies Urge Speedier Hunt for Successor Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:43 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Angela Merkel is under growing pressure after party allies said the process of selecting a new heir should be accelerated, potentially spelling an early exit for the German chancellor if she fails to contain a spiraling crisis.A day after her handpicked successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, announced she would no longer pursue the top job, the influential head of Merkel's parliamentary caucus and a top official from the Bavarian CSU sister party of her Christian Democrats joined a chorus of voices demanding a quicker resolution.An accelerated time table could make it more difficult for Merkel to serve out her fourth term, which is slated to end in September 2021.Ralph Brinkhaus, the CDU/CSU caucus leader, said Tuesday there "quickly" needs to be a decision about who will run to replace Merkel and suggested a party conference to settle the issue should be brought forward from December."If we spend three quarters of a year debating about personnel, that's also not a good thing," Brinkhaus told reporters in Berlin. "On the other hand, it is the case that we need to make decisions in the party, so we should take the time to take the appropriate decisions."The attack on the succession plan -- which foresees a candidate selected by this summer and approved at the December convention -- raises the question of whether Merkel can hold on to power. Whoever is chosen may decide to try and push her out before the end of her term or trigger early elections.While AKK, as Kramp-Karrenbauer is known, presented the timetable, Merkel was seen as approving it by pledging to involve herself closely in the process. Now she needs to decide whether to publicly disown it.'Decisions Now'"Parties need to be led, so the time frame that was put forward yesterday was in my view no time frame that has a chance of being implemented," the CSU's parliamentary leader in Berlin, Alexander Dobrindt, told reporters. "We need decisions now to achieve clarity."Brinkhaus and Dobrindt weren't alone in their criticism. CSU party leader Markus Soeder and the CDU premier of the state of Hesse, Volker Bouffier, also want the succession process to be expedited.For Merkel, her entire legacy is riding on who takes over. While AKK, dubbed mini-Merkel by local media, held off Friedrich Merz -- a challenger from a more conservative faction within the party -- in a tight contest in December 2018, he is now back in contention, and there is a history of bad blood between him and Merkel.The renewed contest to replace Merkel will determine the party's future direction at a time of global upheaval, from trade disputes to the environment and role of the European Union in the aftermath of Brexit. Germany, along with France, set the mood music in the EU and a more conservative party leader will inevitably alter the power dynamics.Merkel, who was at the height of her powers during the Greek crisis, has seen her stature diminished on the domestic stage by the refugee crisis of 2015 that also saw the rise of the far-right. In fact, winning votes back from Alternative for Germany, will be one of the key challenges for whoever takes over from her.So far, potential contenders have held their fire and nobody has called for breaking the coalition and calling a new election. The theory goes that as long as Merkel is overseeing the succession process, a more centrist candidate could have the upper hand.AKK was unable to stamp her authority on the party since taking charge of the CDU in December 2018 and was humiliated last week when a local chapter in eastern Germany defied her orders and threw its lot in with the AfD.(Updates with Brinkhaus comments from second paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Arne Delfs in Berlin at adelfs@bloomberg.net;Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, ;Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Chris Reiter, Iain RogersFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Mali’s President Open to Talks With Jihadists to End Insurgency Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:41 AM PST |
| Iran taunts US on anniversary of shah's ouster Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:30 AM PST  Iran taunted the United States on the 41st anniversary Tuesday of the ouster of its ally the shah, as huge crowds gathered to mark the historic occasion. Waving national and Shiite flags and holding portraits of the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the crowds braved sub-zero temperatures in Tehran's iconic Azadi Square. "It is unbearable for the United States to accept the victory of a great nation and that a superpower has been driven out of this land," President Hassan Rouhani told the gathering.
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| Official: Sudan to hand over al-Bashir for genocide trial Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:20 AM PST  Sudan's transitional authorities have agreed to hand over ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court to face trial on charges of war crimes and genocide, a top Sudanese official said Tuesday, in a deal with rebels to surrender all those wanted in connection with the Darfur conflict. For a decade after his indictment, al-Bashir confounded the court based in The Hague, Netherlands. Military leaders initially ruled out surrendering him to The Hague, saying he would be tried at home.
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| Climate change impacts in Bangladesh show how geography, wealth and culture affect vulnerability Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:54 AM PST  Unpredictable weather and climate patterns recently prompted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to proclaim in January 2020 that "Apocalypse will become the new normal." Extreme storms, tides and other awful surprises the world has experienced in recent years suggest that Krugman could be right. July 2019 registered the hottest average global temperature on record. Wildfires, like the dangerous blazes of January 2020 in Australia, endanger health and safety. In Venice in November 2019, the highest tides in 50 years washed more than three feet of water over the landmark Piazza San Marco.About 4,500 miles farther east, in my home country of Bangladesh, people have been living with dangerous flooding for decades. I have devoted my career to understanding how patterns of living combine with climate and weather patterns, making Bangladesh the poster child for global climate change impacts.During floods in 1998 I waded chest-deep through floodwaters in Darsana, in southwestern Bangladesh, watching out for dangerous snakes, just to buy rice and kerosene for my family. In 2019, months before the tides that inundated Venice, flooding in Bangladesh killed more than 60 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.However, everyone is not equally vulnerable to these threats. In coastal Bangladesh, I have documented the disproportionate nature of climate impacts. To support people living in distressed situations caused by natural hazards, I believe it is essential to understand the complex social landscape of local vulnerability. Geographically and socially vulnerableMost countries face adverse consequences from climate change, but low-income developing countries are particularly at risk – first, because they have limited capacities to cope; and second, because they rely heavily on farming and fishing. Of all countries in this plight, I believe Bangladesh suffers the most.While the entire country is exposed to climate stresses, Bangladesh's densely populated coastal region along the Bay of Bengal is a vulnerability front line where people are constantly exposed to sea level rise, flooding, erosion, tropical cyclones, storm surge, saltwater intrusion and varying rainfall patterns. Studies show that any change in expected weather and climate patterns will seriously reduce Bangladesh's food security. This will hinder the nation's efforts to reduce poverty and reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Most people in this disaster-prone region also live in challenging socioeconomic conditions. Evidence shows that race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age and other socioeconomic differences can amplify disaster outcomes and shape local vulnerability. For example, women, children and elderly populations are more vulnerable than others because they have limited social and economic resources and access to public and private support before and after disasters.Connections between land, people, societies and cultures should guide policymakers and leaders to help Bangladesh's distinct ethnic groups adapt. The role of wealth, religion and genderIn 2017 and 2018 I interviewed 250 local farmers and several others in the Kalapara area of coastal Bangladesh. Many of them were directly impacted by sea level rise, tropical cyclones, coastal flooding, rainfall variability and saltwater intrusion. Kalapara is one of the most climate-vulnerable locations in Bangladesh.Here residents' vulnerability depends on religion, ethnicity, gender and the size of their farm operations. Large farmers usually have more money, social power and local influence. They also have better access to various public and private resources that can be critical for coping with environmental stresses. The poor and those with limited resources are least equipped to confront those crises.Religion can play a delicate role. In Kalapara, Muslims are the religious majority and Hindus are the minority. My own findings indicated that in most cases Muslim farmers earn more money from both farming and nonfarm activities than the Hindu farmers. Muslim farmers also get better access to early warnings and other public and private resources, such as financial support and food aid in times of disaster. Since Muslims are the religious majority in Bangladesh, they have more social capital and stronger networks than other religious groups. In Kalapara, Hindu farmers are often marginalized and receive limited access to resources in times of crisis.I have found that gender is a factor too. Most women who go into farming are excluded from local power structures. Men's farms tend to be larger and earn more money than those owned by women. But female farmers usually earn more money off the farm, by selling poultry or handicrafts, than men do. Men receive more of the critical early weather and climate warnings than women because they have stronger connections with agricultural extension agents. Men also enjoy easier access to local markets and mobile phones. All of these resources offer them information on weather and climate, whereas women often face barriers because of religious and cultural restrictions. Rakhines remain somewhat isolatedIn the complex landscape of local vulnerability in Kalapara, the majority of the people are ethnic Bengalis who are largely divided between Muslims and Hindus. Others are members of the Rakhine ethnic minority. These farmers, who settled in the region in the late 18th century, came from modern-day Myanmar. At that time most of coastal Bangladesh was covered by forests, which Rakhines cleared to establish their settlements.As time passed, more and more Bengalis started to settle around the Rakhines in the region. Rakhine farmers' culture and religion differ substantially from those of mainstream Bengali farmers. Many Rakhines still speak their native language, also called Rakhine, although they can speak some Bangla. The language barrier limits their ability to participate in local government or other social and political activities. They live in remote villages, and tend not to understand official early warnings of major storms or other natural hazards. Local action guides the worldBangladesh's climate is changing quickly. Adapting to this crisis requires understanding how complex and vulnerable the landscape is. Policymakers sometimes overlook local social dynamics when providing early warnings, food or other social services. Reacting without careful planning or understanding local societies could leave some people vulnerable and risks overlooking groups who are already under stress because of climate change. As Bangladesh seeks ways to adapt to climate change, it could set an example of inclusive planning for other nations to follow.[ Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter. ]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Climate change will displace millions in coming decades. Nations should prepare now to help them * Bangladeshi rappers wield rhymes as a weapon, with Tupac as their guideThis research was funded by the NOAA (grant NA13OAR4310184) with contributions from USAID under the International Research and Applications Project.
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| EU Won’t Budge on Open Borders, Switzerland’s Government Warns Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:49 AM PST |
| The Latest: Warren says her campaign is just getting started Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:48 AM PST  Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has addressed her New Hampshire supporters without waiting for results in the state's first-in-the-nation primary. The Massachusetts senator took the stage at her party near the airport in Manchester barely 20 minutes after polls closed in some areas Tuesday.
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| NATO set for Iraq troop trainer-swap to mollify US demands Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:19 AM PST  NATO countries are preparing to move more than 200 trainers working with the international force fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq to the military alliance's own mission there helping to build up the Iraqi army in response to President Donald Trump's demand that U.S. allies do more in the Middle East, senior officials said Tuesday. The move — essentially a "re-badging" exercise as troops shift from the anti-IS coalition to NATO control — will be high on the agenda Wednesday when NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels to weigh exact troop numbers. "There are several areas where the training is really overlapping," U.S. NATO envoy Kay Bailey Hutchison told reporters.
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| Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:09 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- When an outbreak of the Ebola virus touched the United States' shores in mid-2014, Donald Trump was still a private citizen. But he had strong opinions about how America should act.Trump, who has spoken openly about his phobia of germs, closely followed the epidemic, and offered angry commentary about what he said was the Obama administration's dangerous response. He demanded draconian measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers who had contracted the disease in Africa."Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days -- now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!" Trump tweeted on that July 31 after learning that one American medical worker would be evacuated to Atlanta from Liberia. "The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back," Trump wrote the next day, adding: "People that go to far away places to help out are great -- but must suffer the consequences!"In nearly 50 tweets, as well as in appearances on Fox News and other networks, Trump supported flight bans and strict quarantines and branded President Barack Obama's deployment of troops to West Africa to fight the disease as "morally unfair."Many health experts called Trump's responses extreme, noting that the health workers would have most likely faced agonizing deaths had they not been evacuated to American hospitals. Former Obama administration officials said his commentary stoked alarmism in the news media and spread fear among the public.Now Trump confronts another epidemic in the form of the coronavirus, this time at the head of the country's health care and national security agencies. The illness has infected few people in the United States, but health officials fear it could soon spread more widely. And while Trump has so far kept his distance from the issue, public health experts worry that his extreme fear of germs, disdain for scientific and bureaucratic expertise and suspicion of foreigners could be a dangerous mix, should he wind up overseeing a severe outbreak at home."Having a head of state who is trusted, who is a credible message deliverer, consistent in communications and consistent with evidence, is absolutely necessary," said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "There's so much misinformation out there, so a central role is for a leader to be a go-to source for credible information."For the most part, Trump has been uncharacteristically restrained in his commentary about the virus, partly for fear of elevating the subject and further rattling financial markets, according to a person briefed on his thinking. Instead, he has largely delegated the response to senior health officials.At the end of January, Trump created a 12-member coronavirus task force, which will be managed by the National Security Council. It includes the health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.All three have experience dealing with infectious diseases, especially Fauci, who has helped to manage the response to numerous outbreaks, including the AIDS epidemic, the SARS virus and Ebola.In many of his remarks he has made, Trump has praised President Xi Jinping of China, even though his government has been widely criticized for a clumsy and initially secretive response to the coronavirus, and made some questionable announcements."They're working really hard, and I think they're doing a very professional job," Trump said Friday.Speaking to a meeting of the nation's governors on Monday, he predicted that the virus will have run its course by spring and again referred to the Chinese president."The virus that we're talking about having to do, a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically that will go away in April," Trump said. Referring to the United States, he added: "We're in great shape, though. We have 12 cases, 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now." (The number of confirmed cases is 12, according to a Monday update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)"I had a long talk with President Xi two nights ago," he added. "He feels very confident. He feels that again, as I mentioned, by April or during the month of April, the heat generally speaking kills this kind of virus. So that would be a good thing."Public health experts questioned the speculative nature of his comments. "I think there is a lot we still don't know about this virus, and I'm not sure we can say definitively that it will dissipate with warmer weather," said Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University."Relying on the fact that it's going to warm up in April as reassurance that the virus will be controlled by then I think is arguable," added Dr. James M. Hughes, a professor emeritus of medicine at Emory University.Other comments from Trump about the disease have been inaccurate or met with criticism. In late January, he wrote on Twitter that five coronavirus cases had been confirmed in the United States just hours after a sixth had been confirmed. Addressing the virus on Feb. 2, Trump boasted to Fox News, "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."The words "shut it down" apparently referred to an executive order the president had issued two days earlier, barring entry to the United States by foreign citizens who traveled to China in the past two weeks. Some health experts worry that Trump overpromised because the order -- which the White House announced abruptly, with little outside consultation -- is unlikely to prevent the illness from reaching the United States, and federal health officials say they assume the number of cases in the United States is likely to increase.Speaking at a Friday news briefing, Azar defended the president's actions and said the new travel restrictions were "very measured and incremental" while praising Trump's "aggressive" response overall.Presidential words have played an important role in past health crises. Ronald Reagan was severely criticized for his slow response to the spread of HIV and for recommending abstinence to address the infection. Obama resisted pressure from Trump and others to institute sweeping travel bans and quarantines, calling them alarmist and urging levelheaded thinking."This is a serious disease, but we can't give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need," Obama said in October 2014 in a radio address. "We have to be guided by the science. We have to remember the basic facts."Trump's record on presenting facts has been a persistent source of criticism in the scientific community. The last time the White House became involved in managing a national emergency, during Hurricane Dorian in September, he misstated an official forecast of the storm's path, then displayed a tracking map in the Oval Office that he appeared to have altered with one of his signature Sharpie pens."Trump has the right people, but the wrong instincts and the wrong structure," said Ronald Klain, who directed the Obama administration's response to the 2014 Ebola crisis. "Our government is staffed with the best experts, scientists and medical leaders in the world. But Trump's instincts -- anti-science, anti-expert, isolationist and xenophobic -- risk that he will eschew that advice at critical points."Another factor is Trump's lifelong obsession with personal hygiene. While he has shown little interest in health or science policy, he has often spoken of his extreme revulsion to germs.In his 2004 book, "How to Get Rich," the president declared himself "very much of a germophobe," and wrote that he was "waging a personal crusade to replace the mandatory and unsanitary handshake with the Japanese custom of bowing."As a result, Trump generally avoids the political tradition of shaking dozens of hands after his speeches and rallies, and frequently uses hand sanitizer. He is quick to banish aides who cough and sneeze in his presence. In a January 2017 interview, the president's personal physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said Trump always "changes the paper himself" in the examining room.In that regard, Trump may have gained at least a temporary ally in Xi. Mingling for the cameras with Beijing residents Monday, Xi, who sported a surgical mask, recommended they skip the customary form of greeting. "Let's not shake hands in this special time," he said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Trump Budget Calls for New Nuclear Warheads and 2 Types of Missiles Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:09 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration has begun to put a price tag on its growing arms race with Russia and China, and the early numbers indicate that restoring nuclear weapons to a central role in American military strategy will cost tens of billions of dollars over the next decade.In the 2021 budget released Monday, the administration revealed for the first time that it intended to create a new submarine-launched nuclear warhead, named the W93. Its development is part of a proposed 19% increase this year, to $19.8 billion, for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department agency that maintains the nuclear stockpile and develops new nuclear warheads. More tellingly, that is a jump of more than 50% since 2017, President Donald Trump's first year in office.There is $15.5 billion scheduled for development and deployment of new space assets -- part of the new Space Force created by Trump -- that are central to detecting incoming launches and for the command and control of American offensive weapons.Buried in the budget is a significant new effort to develop intermediate-range missiles -- largely conventional weapons -- that were prohibited by the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty with Moscow that Trump withdrew from last year.The budget also proposes $3.2 billion for hypersonic weapons, a 23% increase in research and development meant to compete with a growing number of similar Russian weapons. The missiles are particularly hard to defend against because they follow an unpredictable path to a target, at tremendous speed. But there were few specifics about whether the American versions would be fielded around the time that Russia's weapons roll out, now scheduled for later in this decade, or whether they would follow by a number of years.The increases reflect more than budget priorities. They reveal a significantly different philosophy, rooted in Trump's own belief that the United States should maintain the world's most powerful nuclear force -- and perhaps enlarge it.When President Barack Obama's administration signed the New START agreement with Russia nearly a decade ago, Obama declared that it was U.S. policy "to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and focus on reducing the nuclear dangers of the 21st century." At the same time, he pledged to maintain a "safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent."As Obama struggled to reconcile those two goals, he did not authorize new weapons. Instead, he renovated the weapons laboratories -- part of the political deal that resulted in passage of the New START treaty -- and deferred decisions about new bombers, ground-based missiles and nuclear-equipped submarines."This started under President Obama, but they consciously made no choices because the bill wasn't due yet," said Stephen Young, the Washington representative of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Now the Trump administration has put new projects on the table."The Trump budget also proposes putting significant funds into reinvigorating old systems.For years, strategists have debated whether the United States could abandon its ground-based nuclear missiles, spread out in silos across the West. They are considered highly vulnerable and so old -- many of them date to the 1970s -- that they are a hazard.But Trump has produced a base budget of $1.5 billion in 2021 to prepare for deploying a new generation of missiles in the late 2020s. That is a nearly threefold increase from last year.In fact, the administration has put so many new projects in front of the Energy Department and the Pentagon that it seems unlikely many of them will get done, at least on the schedule Trump envisioned in his budget plan. The W93 weapon would not go into production until 2034, or nearly a decade after Trump would leave office if elected to a second term. Another new nuclear warhead, called the 87-1, a redesign of a 40-year-old thermonuclear weapon made for ground-based missiles, would not begin production until 2030."The bottom line is that NNSA has more work on its plate than it can perform," Young said of the National Nuclear Security Administration. "They are attempting to rebuild the entire nuclear stockpile, while building new components. And their history is that they do not perform big projects on time and on budget."It is possible that Trump's plan could be upended by the next president, or the president after that. But for now, the message being sent abroad is that the United States is back in the nuclear weapons business, either because it wants to bolster its arsenal or because Trump wants a stronger hand in negotiations.At the same time, U.S. allies are going in the other direction. France's president, Emmanuel Macron, said in a speech Friday that his country's arsenal had dropped below 300 weapons, and that he would seek other cuts."These decisions are in line with our rejecting any type of arms race and our keeping the format for our nuclear deterrent at a level of strict sufficiency," he said. He also called for "an autonomous and competitive industrial defense base," so that France is less dependent on American technology.The key decision over the next year will not be what weapons to manufacture, but whether the restraints on creating a new, larger arsenal will expire a year from now.That is when the New START treaty is scheduled to expire, unless Trump and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, decide on a five-year extension, a move that would not require a Senate vote. So far, Trump has said he would take that step only if China -- which did not sign the accord -- joins it, along with other nuclear powers.China has expressed no interest in doing so, and notes that its arsenal is one-fifth the size of Washington's and Moscow's, each of which is limited to 1,550 deployed weapons under the treaty. The administration has not explained whether it envisioned allowing China to significantly expand its arsenal to match the Russian and American levels, which seems unlikely, or to diminish the arsenals of the two largest superpowers, which is also hard to imagine."Time is critical," a former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, and a former Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed column on Monday. "Doing nothing while waiting for a 'better' agreement is a recipe for disaster: We could lose New START and fail to replace it. The treaty's agreed limits on nuclear arsenals are too important to be put at risk in a game of nuclear chicken."But many of Trump's advisers appear to disagree. They believe that the threat of a nuclear arms race will force Russia and China into a new negotiation, one that will result in a broader treaty.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Buddhist monk recalls Thai soldier's rampage at temple Posted: 11 Feb 2020 04:45 AM PST  A rogue soldier whose rampage left 29 people dead and dozens more injured in northeastern Thailand terrorized a Buddhist temple on his way to a shopping mall where he held people hostage in a nearly 16-hour siege. The peaceful seclusion of the Wat Pa Sattharuam forest monastery was shattered Saturday when the soldier from a nearby army base, Sgt. Maj. Jakrapanth Thomma, 31, roared through in a stolen military jeep, fatally shooting nine people. At the temple complex Tuesday, yellow police tape cordoned off the road to the back gate with dozens of red circles marking where bullet casings were found.
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| Trump’s New Nuclear Budget Is Bad News for Russia Posted: 11 Feb 2020 04:30 AM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Since Donald Trump began his presidency, Democrats have painted him as an appeaser and possibly a pawn of Russia's President Vladimir Putin. At least in his rhetoric, from his supine flattery of Putin in Helsinki to his public rants about NATO allies, Trump has given them some fodder.Nonetheless, the Trump administration has also pursued a foreign policy that has been hostile to Putin's interests. From his decisions in 2017 and 2018 to bomb Russia's client in Syria, to the State Department campaign to get allies to recognize Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela, many of Trump's policies have opposed Russian objectives, not aided them. Trump's defense budget for 2021 bolsters such hawkish policies toward Russia. The new budget requests $28.9 billion for the Pentagon to modernize nuclear delivery systems and $19.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration to modernize the nation's nuclear stockpile.It's true that modernizing the nuclear force has been a neglected priority for more than a decade. A 2017 Congressional Budget Office study laid out a series of cost scenarios for replacing elements of the three main delivery systems for nuclear weapons (missiles, bombers and submarines), many of which were designed and built decades ago. It estimated the cost of planned modernization to be as much as $400 billion through 2046. It's also true that America's nuclear umbrella deters China as well as Russia, and reassures allies not to pursue their own nuclear weapons programs.That said, Russia has the most to lose from a refurbished American atomic arsenal. For starters, a revamped U.S. nuclear deterrent could force Russia to rethink some of its military doctrine. Since 2000, Russian strategists have floated the idea of a limited nuclear strike against an adversary to deter a conventional response from America and its NATO allies. Sometimes known as "Escalate to De-escalate," this change in Russia's military doctrine was one reason why America's nuclear posture review in 2018 recommended the development of tactical nuclear weapons — such as a nuclear cruise missile — intended to complicate Putin's own calculations in a potential conflict with the U.S. or its allies. Russia also loses because of the potential cost of an arms race. Despite America's debt and budget restraints, the U.S. remains a much larger economy than Russia, which is a declining power. As the Reagan administration proved with the larger Soviet Union, Washington has the ability to outspend Moscow when it comes to strategic weapons.Finally, the commitment to nuclear modernization emphasizes deterrence going forward as opposed to the Obama administration's emphasis on arms control. Historically, the Russians have used the opportunity of nuclear arms control deals to cheat while America reduced its arsenal.That's what happened with the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. The U.S. learned as early as 2008 that Russia had been researching a new ground-based cruise missile proscribed by the treaty; U.S. officials labeled the missile as a violation of the INF in a 2014 treaty compliance report. In 2017, a U.S. official confirmed Russia's deployment of that missile against NATO positions in Europe. This is why the Trump administration withdrew from the treaty in 2019, after giving Russia a series of warnings to come back into compliance.As far domestic politics goes, these arguments are not likely to persuade Democrats to move ahead rapidly on nuclear modernization, despite the party's new hawkish posture when it comes to Russia. In recent years, the nuclear arsenal has been one of the most partisan elements of the defense budget. Senator Elizabeth Warren has campaigned in part on her proposal to declare a no-nuclear-first-strike policy if she is elected president. And because Trump's new budget cuts funding for social service programs such as Medicaid, it's easy to see Democrats attacking an investment in nuclear weapons at the expense of infrastructure spending or programs to alleviate poverty.Of course, defense and entitlement spending come from different pots of money in the budget. As the Dispatch recently reported, Mick Mulvaney, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget as well as Trump's acting chief of staff, initially rejected the increased spending for nuclear modernization. For now, it appears that some of the money for nuclear modernization has come at the expense of a Virginia-class submarine requested by the Navy, according to reporting last week from Bloomberg.Early reports say that Trump himself weighed in at the last minute in favor of nuclear modernization, over the objections of Mulvaney and the OMB. That should not be a surprise from a president who has boasted about the size and power of the nuclear button on his desk. It does, though, further discredit the theory that Trump is Putin's stooge. To contact the author of this story: Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.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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| Trump’s New Nuclear Budget Is Bad News for Russia Posted: 11 Feb 2020 04:30 AM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Since Donald Trump began his presidency, Democrats have painted him as an appeaser and possibly a pawn of Russia's President Vladimir Putin. At least in his rhetoric, from his supine flattery of Putin in Helsinki to his public rants about NATO allies, Trump has given them some fodder.Nonetheless, the Trump administration has also pursued a foreign policy that has been hostile to Putin's interests. From his decisions in 2017 and 2018 to bomb Russia's client in Syria, to the State Department campaign to get allies to recognize Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela, many of Trump's policies have opposed Russian objectives, not aided them. Trump's defense budget for 2021 bolsters such hawkish policies toward Russia. The new budget requests $28.9 billion for the Pentagon to modernize nuclear delivery systems and $19.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration to modernize the nation's nuclear stockpile.It's true that modernizing the nuclear force has been a neglected priority for more than a decade. A 2017 Congressional Budget Office study laid out a series of cost scenarios for replacing elements of the three main delivery systems for nuclear weapons (missiles, bombers and submarines), many of which were designed and built decades ago. It estimated the cost of planned modernization to be as much as $400 billion through 2046. It's also true that America's nuclear umbrella deters China as well as Russia, and reassures allies not to pursue their own nuclear weapons programs.That said, Russia has the most to lose from a refurbished American atomic arsenal. For starters, a revamped U.S. nuclear deterrent could force Russia to rethink some of its military doctrine. Since 2000, Russian strategists have floated the idea of a limited nuclear strike against an adversary to deter a conventional response from America and its NATO allies. Sometimes known as "Escalate to De-escalate," this change in Russia's military doctrine was one reason why America's nuclear posture review in 2018 recommended the development of tactical nuclear weapons — such as a nuclear cruise missile — intended to complicate Putin's own calculations in a potential conflict with the U.S. or its allies. Russia also loses because of the potential cost of an arms race. Despite America's debt and budget restraints, the U.S. remains a much larger economy than Russia, which is a declining power. As the Reagan administration proved with the larger Soviet Union, Washington has the ability to outspend Moscow when it comes to strategic weapons.Finally, the commitment to nuclear modernization emphasizes deterrence going forward as opposed to the Obama administration's emphasis on arms control. Historically, the Russians have used the opportunity of nuclear arms control deals to cheat while America reduced its arsenal.That's what happened with the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. The U.S. learned as early as 2008 that Russia had been researching a new ground-based cruise missile proscribed by the treaty; U.S. officials labeled the missile as a violation of the INF in a 2014 treaty compliance report. In 2017, a U.S. official confirmed Russia's deployment of that missile against NATO positions in Europe. This is why the Trump administration withdrew from the treaty in 2019, after giving Russia a series of warnings to come back into compliance.As far domestic politics goes, these arguments are not likely to persuade Democrats to move ahead rapidly on nuclear modernization, despite the party's new hawkish posture when it comes to Russia. In recent years, the nuclear arsenal has been one of the most partisan elements of the defense budget. Senator Elizabeth Warren has campaigned in part on her proposal to declare a no-nuclear-first-strike policy if she is elected president. And because Trump's new budget cuts funding for social service programs such as Medicaid, it's easy to see Democrats attacking an investment in nuclear weapons at the expense of infrastructure spending or programs to alleviate poverty.Of course, defense and entitlement spending come from different pots of money in the budget. As the Dispatch recently reported, Mick Mulvaney, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget as well as Trump's acting chief of staff, initially rejected the increased spending for nuclear modernization. For now, it appears that some of the money for nuclear modernization has come at the expense of a Virginia-class submarine requested by the Navy, according to reporting last week from Bloomberg.Early reports say that Trump himself weighed in at the last minute in favor of nuclear modernization, over the objections of Mulvaney and the OMB. That should not be a surprise from a president who has boasted about the size and power of the nuclear button on his desk. It does, though, further discredit the theory that Trump is Putin's stooge. To contact the author of this story: Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.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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