Re: Politics
Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 5:06 pm
Russia Says About 10,000 IS Militants Now in Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD — Russia has estimated there are about 10,000 Islamic State militants in Afghanistan and their number is growing because fighters fleeing Syria and Iraq also are heading to the war-ravaged country. Russian media on Saturday quoted Zamir Kabulov, Russia's special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, as saying Moscow is particularly worried about an increasing foothold of Daesh militants in northern Afghan provinces bordering Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for IS. "Russia was among the first to be sounding the alarms in connection with the emergence of Daesh in Afghanistan.... Daesh has significantly increased its power in the country recently. According to our estimates, the number of militants exceeds 10,000 and continues to grow, particularly due to new fighters arriving from Syria and Iraq," Kabulov told the Sputnik news agency. The Russian envoy alleged helicopters “without identifying insignia” are transferring fighters and delivering “Western [military] equipment” to the Afghan branch of the terrorist group.
https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-afghan ... 76497.html
Mexico murders hit record high, dealing blow to president
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has this year registered its highest murder total since modern records began, according to official data, dealing a fresh blow to President Enrique Pena Nieto’s pledge to get gang violence under control with presidential elections due in 2018. A total of 23,101 murder investigations were opened in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing the 22,409 registered in the whole of 2011, figures published on Friday night by the interior ministry showed. The figures go back to 1997. Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 pledging to tame the violence that escalated under his predecessor Felipe Calderon. He managed to reduce the murder tally during the first two years of his term, but since then it has risen steadily. At 18.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, the 2017 Mexican murder rate is still lower than it was in 2011, when it reached almost 19.4 per 100,000, the data showed. The rate has also held below levels reported in several other Latin American countries. According to U.N. figures used in the World Bank’s online database, Brazil and Colombia both had a murder rate of 27 per 100,000, Venezuela 57, Honduras 64 and El Salvador 109 in 2015, the last year for which data are available.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexi ... SKBN1EH0LK
Tribe Will Move From Shrinking Island to Louisiana Farm
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana officials have chosen a sugar cane farm as the next home for residents of a tiny, shrinking island, a move funded with a 2016 federal grant awarded to help relocate communities fleeing the effects of climate change. Dozens of Isle de Jean Charles residents are to be relocated about 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the northwest, in Terrebonne Parish, Nola.com|The Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate report. The tract, which is closer to stores, schools and health care — and which is less flood-prone than the island, which has been battered by hurricanes and tropical storms.sle de Jean Charles is home to members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe. It has lost 98 percent of its area since 1955. Causes include erosion, sinking of coastal land, and Mississippi River levees that block replenishing river sediment. Climate change-triggered sea-level rise is expected eventually to drown the island.
https://www.voanews.com/a/tribe-will-mo ... 76285.html
Cholera outbreak hits record 1 million
(CNN) It had already become the world's biggest cholera outbreak in recent history, but now the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen since April has hit 1 million, and at an incredibly fast speed. The International Committee of the Red Cross announced the record Thursday on its official Twitter account Thursday, describing it as "shocking." "More than 80% of the population lack food, fuel, clean water and access to health care," it said, pointing to some of the underlying causes of the disease. Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness that kills thousands of people worldwide each year. It is easily transmitted, by consuming food or water contaminated with the fecal bacteria Vibrio cholerae. Yemen's civil war that began in 2015 has left millions of people on the brink of famine, and as clean drinking water becomes harder to find, cholera has spread through communities. While the rate of cholera contraction is beginning to slow in Yemen, doctors are concerned the reprieve will be short, and fear the onset of diphtheria, another disease that can be deadly, especially for children.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/ye ... index.html
Problem for Puerto Rico in review of hurricane deaths: 'The bodies have been buried'
Bayamón, Puerto Rico (CNN) In the world of forensic pathology, there's a morbid truism: Bodies are evidence, and you need a body in order to fully examine a death. Thousands of people have died since the storm on September 20, according to the Puerto Rican government. Many, if not most, of those bodies have been buried or cremated. That fact will severely limit the US territory's efforts to re-analyze deaths, experts told CNN. "At this point, the bodies have been buried, and there is no way to do a thorough investigation of each individual case," said Eric Klinenberg. "You'd want to talk with next of kin and neighbors to find out what happened to the person, possibly with doctors as well. But that is very difficult even in the best of times, and right now (many) people still don't have power," he said. "It would require an enormous effort." The official death toll from Hurricane Maria stands at 64. In reality, it may be many times higher. In November, CNN surveyed half of the funeral homes in Puerto Rico and identified 499 deaths that funeral home directors and staff say were hurricane-related. Later, The New York Times and academics calculated the number of "excess deaths" in 2017 compared with previous years. That analysis led the paper to suggest more than 1,000 people likely died in the storm.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/20/health/pu ... index.html
The psychology of sycophants
(CNN) President Donald Trump invited Republicans to the White House on Wednesday to celebrate the tax bill's passage through Congress. There, the praise was unrestrained. "This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishing for the Trump administration," Sen. Mitch McConnell said. "Something this profound could not have been done without exquisite presidential leadership," House Speaker Paul Ryan said. "We are going to make this the greatest presidency we have seen, not only in generations but maybe ever," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, whose praise and hopes included all present. "You've spurred an optimism in this country that's setting records," Vice President Mike Pence said. Not surprisingly, critics heard these accolades as the purest form of sycophancy -- insincere flattery -- bestowed by a team of "yes men."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/22/health/ps ... index.html
Russia's ruling party seeks Putin's 'ultimate victory' at 2018 election
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s ruling party United Russia wants the “ultimate victory” of President Vladimir Putin at the presidential election in March, party head and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday. Putin, 65, said earlier this month he would run for re-election as a self-nominated candidate, in a contest he seems sure to win comfortably, extending his grip on power into a third decade. “We will give you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, all possible support, now and in the future,” said Medvedev, addressing Putin by his first and patronymic names.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russ ... SKBN1EH0CN
Exclusive: U.S. memo weakens guidelines for protecting immigrant children in court
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has issued new guidelines for immigration judges that remove some instructions for how to protect unaccompanied juveniles appearing in their courtrooms. A Dec. 20 memo, issued by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) replaces 2007 guidelines, spelling out policies and procedures judges should follow in dealing with children who crossed the border illegally alone and face possible deportation. The new memo removes suggestions contained in the 2007 memo for how to conduct “child-sensitive questioning” and adds reminders to judges to maintain “impartiality” even though “juvenile cases may present sympathetic allegations.” The new document also changes the word “child” to “unmarried individual under the age of 18” in many instances.
(Link to comparison: tmsnrt.rs/2BlT0VK
May 2007 document: tmsnrt.rs/2BBR8wj
December 2017 document: tmsnrt.rs/2C2sWCs)
An EOIR official said the new memo contained “clarifications and updates” to 10-year-old guidance “in order to be consistent with the laws as they’ve been passed by Congress.” The new memo was posted on the Justice Department website but has not been previously reported.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1EH037
McConnell happier with Trump tweets after tax victory
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A summer spat between President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has turned into a warm embrace - and all it took was a sweeping rewrite of the U.S. tax code. For months, McConnell urged the president to lock his cell phone in a drawer and retire his signature tweets that have Washington abuzz on a daily basis. He even chided Trump for having “excessive expectations” of Congress. McConnell joined in the love fest on Friday, or at least what constitutes a love fest for the understated senator.
“With regard to the president’s tweeting habits, I haven’t been a fan until this week. I‘m warming up to it,” McConnell quipped.
Moscow: U.S. arms may spur use of force by Kiev in eastern Ukraine
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The U.S. decision to supply weapons to Ukraine is dangerous as it will encourage Kiev to use force in eastern Ukraine, Russian officials said on Saturday. The U.S. State Department said on Friday the United States would provide Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities” as Kiev battles Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Facebook on Saturday the weapons would be used to protect Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Facebook on Saturday the weapons would be used to protect Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Supplies of any weapons now encourage those who support the conflict in Ukraine to use the “force scenario,” Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin as saying on Saturday. Franz Klintsevich, a member of the upper house of the Russian parliament’s security committee, said Kiev would consider arms supplies as support of its actions, Interfax news agency reported. “Americans, in fact, directly push Ukrainian forces to war,” Klintsevich said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1EH097
Everything we know about North Korea's bioweapons program
North Korea's successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4 heightened global fears about the deadly threat of nuclear war. But nuclear weapons are not the only weapons of mass destruction that experts think North Korea is developing. They warn that the secretive state also possesses chemical weapon stores and may maintain an ongoing biological weapons program as well. Biological weapons are particularly scary, since they could ignite a global disease pandemic as devastating as nuclear war — a threat Bill Gates wrote about in an op-ed for Business Insider in February. It's likely that North Korea has been developing such weapons since the 1960s, according to most experts. Defectors and South Korean reports have suggested that North Korean researchers have worked with biological agents the US governments considers serious threats, including plague, anthrax, viral hemorrhagic fevers, and potentially smallpox. Kim Jong Un visited Pyongyang's Bio-technical Institute in 2015, where he was photographed by North Korean television posing with lab equipment and military personnel. This effort was likely "designed to send a message to the United States: that North Korea has an active bioweapons program," Ouagrham-Gormley wrote. South Korean news reports have also indicated that North Korea is "likely capable" or "suspected" of being able to produce biological weapons.
ISLAMABAD — Russia has estimated there are about 10,000 Islamic State militants in Afghanistan and their number is growing because fighters fleeing Syria and Iraq also are heading to the war-ravaged country. Russian media on Saturday quoted Zamir Kabulov, Russia's special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, as saying Moscow is particularly worried about an increasing foothold of Daesh militants in northern Afghan provinces bordering Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for IS. "Russia was among the first to be sounding the alarms in connection with the emergence of Daesh in Afghanistan.... Daesh has significantly increased its power in the country recently. According to our estimates, the number of militants exceeds 10,000 and continues to grow, particularly due to new fighters arriving from Syria and Iraq," Kabulov told the Sputnik news agency. The Russian envoy alleged helicopters “without identifying insignia” are transferring fighters and delivering “Western [military] equipment” to the Afghan branch of the terrorist group.
https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-afghan ... 76497.html
Mexico murders hit record high, dealing blow to president
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has this year registered its highest murder total since modern records began, according to official data, dealing a fresh blow to President Enrique Pena Nieto’s pledge to get gang violence under control with presidential elections due in 2018. A total of 23,101 murder investigations were opened in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing the 22,409 registered in the whole of 2011, figures published on Friday night by the interior ministry showed. The figures go back to 1997. Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 pledging to tame the violence that escalated under his predecessor Felipe Calderon. He managed to reduce the murder tally during the first two years of his term, but since then it has risen steadily. At 18.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, the 2017 Mexican murder rate is still lower than it was in 2011, when it reached almost 19.4 per 100,000, the data showed. The rate has also held below levels reported in several other Latin American countries. According to U.N. figures used in the World Bank’s online database, Brazil and Colombia both had a murder rate of 27 per 100,000, Venezuela 57, Honduras 64 and El Salvador 109 in 2015, the last year for which data are available.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexi ... SKBN1EH0LK
Tribe Will Move From Shrinking Island to Louisiana Farm
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana officials have chosen a sugar cane farm as the next home for residents of a tiny, shrinking island, a move funded with a 2016 federal grant awarded to help relocate communities fleeing the effects of climate change. Dozens of Isle de Jean Charles residents are to be relocated about 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the northwest, in Terrebonne Parish, Nola.com|The Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate report. The tract, which is closer to stores, schools and health care — and which is less flood-prone than the island, which has been battered by hurricanes and tropical storms.sle de Jean Charles is home to members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe. It has lost 98 percent of its area since 1955. Causes include erosion, sinking of coastal land, and Mississippi River levees that block replenishing river sediment. Climate change-triggered sea-level rise is expected eventually to drown the island.
https://www.voanews.com/a/tribe-will-mo ... 76285.html
Cholera outbreak hits record 1 million
(CNN) It had already become the world's biggest cholera outbreak in recent history, but now the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen since April has hit 1 million, and at an incredibly fast speed. The International Committee of the Red Cross announced the record Thursday on its official Twitter account Thursday, describing it as "shocking." "More than 80% of the population lack food, fuel, clean water and access to health care," it said, pointing to some of the underlying causes of the disease. Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness that kills thousands of people worldwide each year. It is easily transmitted, by consuming food or water contaminated with the fecal bacteria Vibrio cholerae. Yemen's civil war that began in 2015 has left millions of people on the brink of famine, and as clean drinking water becomes harder to find, cholera has spread through communities. While the rate of cholera contraction is beginning to slow in Yemen, doctors are concerned the reprieve will be short, and fear the onset of diphtheria, another disease that can be deadly, especially for children.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/ye ... index.html
Problem for Puerto Rico in review of hurricane deaths: 'The bodies have been buried'
Bayamón, Puerto Rico (CNN) In the world of forensic pathology, there's a morbid truism: Bodies are evidence, and you need a body in order to fully examine a death. Thousands of people have died since the storm on September 20, according to the Puerto Rican government. Many, if not most, of those bodies have been buried or cremated. That fact will severely limit the US territory's efforts to re-analyze deaths, experts told CNN. "At this point, the bodies have been buried, and there is no way to do a thorough investigation of each individual case," said Eric Klinenberg. "You'd want to talk with next of kin and neighbors to find out what happened to the person, possibly with doctors as well. But that is very difficult even in the best of times, and right now (many) people still don't have power," he said. "It would require an enormous effort." The official death toll from Hurricane Maria stands at 64. In reality, it may be many times higher. In November, CNN surveyed half of the funeral homes in Puerto Rico and identified 499 deaths that funeral home directors and staff say were hurricane-related. Later, The New York Times and academics calculated the number of "excess deaths" in 2017 compared with previous years. That analysis led the paper to suggest more than 1,000 people likely died in the storm.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/20/health/pu ... index.html
The psychology of sycophants
(CNN) President Donald Trump invited Republicans to the White House on Wednesday to celebrate the tax bill's passage through Congress. There, the praise was unrestrained. "This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishing for the Trump administration," Sen. Mitch McConnell said. "Something this profound could not have been done without exquisite presidential leadership," House Speaker Paul Ryan said. "We are going to make this the greatest presidency we have seen, not only in generations but maybe ever," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, whose praise and hopes included all present. "You've spurred an optimism in this country that's setting records," Vice President Mike Pence said. Not surprisingly, critics heard these accolades as the purest form of sycophancy -- insincere flattery -- bestowed by a team of "yes men."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/22/health/ps ... index.html
Russia's ruling party seeks Putin's 'ultimate victory' at 2018 election
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s ruling party United Russia wants the “ultimate victory” of President Vladimir Putin at the presidential election in March, party head and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday. Putin, 65, said earlier this month he would run for re-election as a self-nominated candidate, in a contest he seems sure to win comfortably, extending his grip on power into a third decade. “We will give you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, all possible support, now and in the future,” said Medvedev, addressing Putin by his first and patronymic names.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russ ... SKBN1EH0CN
Exclusive: U.S. memo weakens guidelines for protecting immigrant children in court
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has issued new guidelines for immigration judges that remove some instructions for how to protect unaccompanied juveniles appearing in their courtrooms. A Dec. 20 memo, issued by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) replaces 2007 guidelines, spelling out policies and procedures judges should follow in dealing with children who crossed the border illegally alone and face possible deportation. The new memo removes suggestions contained in the 2007 memo for how to conduct “child-sensitive questioning” and adds reminders to judges to maintain “impartiality” even though “juvenile cases may present sympathetic allegations.” The new document also changes the word “child” to “unmarried individual under the age of 18” in many instances.
(Link to comparison: tmsnrt.rs/2BlT0VK
May 2007 document: tmsnrt.rs/2BBR8wj
December 2017 document: tmsnrt.rs/2C2sWCs)
An EOIR official said the new memo contained “clarifications and updates” to 10-year-old guidance “in order to be consistent with the laws as they’ve been passed by Congress.” The new memo was posted on the Justice Department website but has not been previously reported.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1EH037
McConnell happier with Trump tweets after tax victory
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A summer spat between President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has turned into a warm embrace - and all it took was a sweeping rewrite of the U.S. tax code. For months, McConnell urged the president to lock his cell phone in a drawer and retire his signature tweets that have Washington abuzz on a daily basis. He even chided Trump for having “excessive expectations” of Congress. McConnell joined in the love fest on Friday, or at least what constitutes a love fest for the understated senator.
“With regard to the president’s tweeting habits, I haven’t been a fan until this week. I‘m warming up to it,” McConnell quipped.
Moscow: U.S. arms may spur use of force by Kiev in eastern Ukraine
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The U.S. decision to supply weapons to Ukraine is dangerous as it will encourage Kiev to use force in eastern Ukraine, Russian officials said on Saturday. The U.S. State Department said on Friday the United States would provide Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities” as Kiev battles Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Facebook on Saturday the weapons would be used to protect Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Facebook on Saturday the weapons would be used to protect Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Supplies of any weapons now encourage those who support the conflict in Ukraine to use the “force scenario,” Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin as saying on Saturday. Franz Klintsevich, a member of the upper house of the Russian parliament’s security committee, said Kiev would consider arms supplies as support of its actions, Interfax news agency reported. “Americans, in fact, directly push Ukrainian forces to war,” Klintsevich said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1EH097
Everything we know about North Korea's bioweapons program
North Korea's successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4 heightened global fears about the deadly threat of nuclear war. But nuclear weapons are not the only weapons of mass destruction that experts think North Korea is developing. They warn that the secretive state also possesses chemical weapon stores and may maintain an ongoing biological weapons program as well. Biological weapons are particularly scary, since they could ignite a global disease pandemic as devastating as nuclear war — a threat Bill Gates wrote about in an op-ed for Business Insider in February. It's likely that North Korea has been developing such weapons since the 1960s, according to most experts. Defectors and South Korean reports have suggested that North Korean researchers have worked with biological agents the US governments considers serious threats, including plague, anthrax, viral hemorrhagic fevers, and potentially smallpox. Kim Jong Un visited Pyongyang's Bio-technical Institute in 2015, where he was photographed by North Korean television posing with lab equipment and military personnel. This effort was likely "designed to send a message to the United States: that North Korea has an active bioweapons program," Ouagrham-Gormley wrote. South Korean news reports have also indicated that North Korea is "likely capable" or "suspected" of being able to produce biological weapons.