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Javier E

The Iraq War Was a Failure-War With Iran Would Be Worse - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...589534

iraq war iran crisis

shared by Javier E on 17 May 19 - No Cached
  • bluffs do get called—and then the bluffer must rapidly make some hasty calculations. Wars of words can escalate into real wars, real fast.
  • If the goal of some inside the administration is to goad Iran into striking first—thus forcing Trump’s hand—that’s a ruse that risks igniting a conflict much bigger than the one with Iraq, and one even less likely to succeed.
  • Even as a bluff, the war talk violates the rule: Don’t threaten to do something so obviously stupid, nobody will believe that you would actually deliver on your threat. You get the worst of all worlds in that case. The threat will not frighten, because it will not be believed. That, in turn, will either push you to do the obviously stupid thing you never intended to do, or force you to walk away from your threats and expose yourself as a bullying blowhard.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Whatever that treaty’s deficiencies, few inside the U.S.—and nobody outside it—deny that Iran complied with its terms. Iran’s behavior in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza is vicious and destructive, as it has been for decades. But where’s the casus belli here? What declared-in-advance U.S. red lines has Iran tripped? Any U.S. military action will look to the world like a bolt-from-the-blue act of aggression. It will look that way for the excellent reason that it’s precisely what it would be.
  • If you will not do it, you should not talk about it. If you are thinking about doing it, stop. And if you are talking without thinking? The U.S. and the world have had more than enough of that from Washington, and not only since January 2017.
g-dragon

Comparative Colonization in Asia - 0 views

www.thoughtco.com/ve-colonization-in-asia-195268

history Colonization Asia Europe

shared by g-dragon on 01 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Several different Western European powers established colonies in Asia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Each of the imperial powers had its own style of administration, and colonial officers from the different nations also displayed various attitudes towards their imperial subjects.
  • Nonetheless, British colonials held themselves apart from local people more than other Europeans did, hiring locals as domestic help, but rarely intermarrying with them. In part, this may have been due to a transfer of British ideas about the separation of classes to their overseas colonies.
  • to Christianize and civilize the peoples of Asia, Africa, and the New World
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  • Although France sought an extensive colonial empire in Asia, its defeat in the Napoleonic Wars left it with just a handful of Asian territories. Those included the 20th-century mandates of Lebanon and Syria, and more especially the key colony of French Indochina - what is now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
  • Some idealistic French sought not just to dominate their colonial holdings, but to create a "Greater France" in which all French subjects around the world truly would be equal. For example, the North African colony of Algeria became a depertment, or a province, of France, complete with parliamentary representation. This difference in attitude may be due to France's embrace of Enlightenment thinking, and to the French Revolution, which had broken down some of the class barriers that still ordered society in Britain.
  • Nonetheless, French colonizers also felt the "white man's burden" of bringing so-called civilization and Christianity to barbaric subject peoples.
  • On the personal level, French colonials were more apt than the British to marry local women and create a cultural fusion in their colonial societies
  • The Dutch competed and fought for control of the Indian Ocean trade routes and spice production with the British, through their respective East India Companies. In the end, the Netherlands lost Sri Lanka to the British, and in 1662, lost Taiwan (Formosa) to the Chinese, but retained control over most of the rich spice islands that now make up Indonesia.
  • As time went on, social pressure increased for French colonials to preserve the "purity" of the "French race."
  • For the Dutch, this colonial enterprise was all about money. There was very little pretense of cultural improvement or Christianization of the heathens - the Dutch wanted profits, plain and simple.  As a result, they showed no qualms about ruthlessly capturing locals and using them as slave labor on the plantations, or even carrying out a massacre of all the inhabitants of the Banda Islands to protect their monopoly on the nutmeg and mace trade.
  • Portugal became the first European power to gain sea access to Asia. Although the Portuguese were quick to explore and lay claim to various coastal parts of India, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and China, its power faded in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the British, Dutch, and French were able to push Portugal out of most of its Asian claims.
  • Although Portugal was not the most intimidating European imperial power, it had the most staying power. Goa remained Portuguese until India annexed it by force in 1961; Macau was Portuguese until 1999, when the Europeans finally handed it back to China; and East Timor or Timor-Leste formally became independent only in 2002. 
  • Portuguese rule in Asia was by turns ruthless (as when they began capturing Chinese children to sell into slavery in Portugal), lackadaisical, and underfunded. Like the French, Portuguese colonists were not opposed to mixing with local peoples and creating creole populations. Perhaps the most important characteristic of the Portuguese imperial attitude, however, was Portugal's stubbornness and refusal to withdraw, even after the other imperial powers had closed up shop.
  • Portuguese imperialism was driven by a sincere desire to spread Catholicism and make tons of money. I
runlai_jiang

Made-up to look beautiful. Sent out to die. - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...look_beautiful_sent_out_to_die

crisis terrorism Islam suicide women rights

shared by runlai_jiang on 08 Feb 18 - No Cached
  • She was just 13 when she was snatched by two men on a motorbike while she was walking to a relative’s house near the border with Cameroon.
  • ually they reached their destination - a huge, makeshift camp. Falmata had no idea where she was.
  • The camp belonged to Boko Haram, the militant group that has been fighting a long insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Falmata was forced to make a choice - marry a fighter, or go on a “mission”.
  • Life in the camp was incredibly monotonous. Wake up, pray, eat, clean, pray, eat, and clean - all day long. There were daily religious lessons, long hours reciting verses from the Koran.
  • almata was approached by armed men and instructed to prepare herself for something important. Her feet were to be decorated with henna. Her hair was to be straightened. Was she being prepared for her wedding, she wondered. Was she going to be married off to a fighter after all? “My friend Hauwa had agreed to get married as a way of trying to stay alive,” Falmata says. “She wanted to find a way to escape.
  • Two days later, she was approached by fighters. A bomb was forced around her waist.
  • Falmata was told that if she killed non-believers, she would go straight to paradise.
  • In their hands were small, homemade detonators. On the way, the three of them discussed whether to carry out the “mission” or abandon it. Should they just do as they were ordered, or try to make their escape? They decided not to carry out the attack.
  • “A lot of the people we meet who have been in these camps haven’t had much education before, neither Western nor Islamic,” says Akilu.
  • Sanaa Mehaydali is thought to have been the first female suicide bomber in modern history. The 16-year-old killed herself and two Israeli soldiers in a suicide attack in southern Lebanon in 1985.
  • s that hundreds of young girls have been forced to carry out attacks in the past three years, in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
  • d of 2017, 454 women and girls had been deployed or arrested in 232 incidents, Pearson says. The attacks killed 1,225 people. Pearson is the author of a study about Boko Haram’s use of female suicide bombers.
  • The first time a girl was forced by the group to carry out an attack was June 2014. The bombing of a military barracks took place shortly after the notorious kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls, who became known as the Chibok girls.
  • She says at first it was mainly young men who carried out suicide attacks - ones who were inspired by Boko Haram’s ideology and rhetoric.
  • n] military offensive got more intense, the pool of young men volunteering dropped significantly, so Boko Haram started kidnapping and coercing young girls for suicide missions.
  • It was the same daily cycle - eat, clean, pray, recite Islamic verses for hours, sleep.
  • She had not gone far before she met two men on the side of the road. What she didn't know was that they, too, belonged to Boko Haram - but a different unit. Falmata was kidnapped for a second time.
  • ny actually learn about the Koran for the first time w
  • . They find that religion is a coping strategy.”
  • A belt of explosives was attached to her stomach. But this time she ran into the forest as soon as the fighters left her.
  • On the way she joined a group of hunters who allowed her to travel with them across the woods.
  • Fatima Akilu has met a number of youngsters like Falmata. She says that when they return, they need time to re-establish family bonds. “She’s been away from her family for too long and she might have changed during this time. But her family may also have changed and have traumas of their own.”
  • She had tasted freedom, but this would turn out to be short-lived. So why didn’t she detonate her suicide belt and end it all? “I wanted to live,” she says. “Killing is not good. It’s what my family taught me and what I believe in too.”
  • runlai_jiang on 08 Feb 18
     
    "subjected"
Javier E

Justin Trudeau's Unlikely Role as Trump Critic - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...561782

trade canada trump

shared by Javier E on 03 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • Trudeau seemed particularly aggrieved by the national-security grounds on which the Trump administration imposed the tariffs. He said Canada was America’s “most steadfast ally” in war and peace, calling the tariffs “an affront to the … thousands of Canadians who have fought and died alongside American comrades-in-arms.” But what he said next perhaps illustrates just how poor relations between the two neighbors have become.
  • “In closing, I want to be very clear about one thing: Americans remain our partners, friends, and allies. This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail,” he said in the type of language that successive U.S. administrations have used to describe recalcitrant regimes such as Iran. “But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration.”
  • via Twitter, Trump added: “Canada has treated our Agricultural business and Farmers very poorly for a very long period of time. Highly restrictive on Trade! They must open their markets and take down their trade barriers! They report a really high surplus on trade with us. Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?” (The U.S. has a $8.4 billion trade surplus in goods and services with Canada.)
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  • Trudeau suggested as much when he said Thursday that he canceled a trip to Washington to meet with Trump about an agreement on NAFTA because Vice President Mike Pence told him that a meeting could only go ahead if a sunset clause were added to the pact. Canada views such a clause—one in which NAFTA would be renegotiated every five years—as a red line because it creates exactly the kind of economic uncertainty that deals like NAFTA are meant to eliminate.
brickol

Coronavirus Refugees: The World's Most Vulnerable Face Pandemic - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...refugees-camps-bangladesh.html

COVID-19 refugees crisis

shared by brickol on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Crowded camps, depleted clinics and scarce soap and water make social distancing and even hand-washing impossible for millions of refugees.
  • In an embattled enclave in Syria, doctors have seen patients die from what looks like the coronavirus but are unable to treat them because they lack beds, protective gear and medical professionals. A refugee camp in Bangladesh is so cramped that its population density is nearly four times that of New York City, making social distancing impossible. Clinics in a refugee camp in Kenya struggle in normal times with only eight doctors for nearly 200,000 people.
  • As wealthy countries like the United States and Italy struggle with mass outbreaks of the coronavirus, international health experts and aid workers are increasingly worried that the virus could ravage the world’s most vulnerable people: the tens of millions forced from their homes by violent conflict.
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  • Many camp clinics are already struggling to fight outbreaks like dengue and cholera, leaving them without the resources to treat chronic conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease. The coronavirus, which has no vaccine or agreed upon treatment regimen for Covid-19, the respiratory disease it causes, could be even more devastating, medical experts warn.
  • So far, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases among refugees is low, but that may be the result of a lack of testing. Testing is severely limited, and refugees are rarely a priority.
  • Refugee camps across Africa, the Middle East and Asia are packed with traumatized and undernourished people with limited access to health care and basic sanitation, perfect breeding grounds for contagion. Extended families jam into tarpaulin shelters with mud floors. Food, water and soap are often lacking. Illnesses, from hacking coughs to deadly diseases, go untreated, facilitating their spread.
  • Daily life in a refugee camp is an ideal incubator for infectious disease. Many lack running water and indoor sanitation. People often stand in line for hours to get water, which is insufficient for frequent showers, much less vigilant hand washing.
  • Nor are there adequate health systems. The same conflicts that have displaced huge numbers of people have decimated medical facilities, or forced people to live in places where there are none.The war in Syria has sent more than a million refugees into Lebanon, which is facing an economic crisis. Many live in cramped, squalid conditions and suffer from acute poverty.
  • Many refugees also suffer from poor nutrition and other health conditions that could leave them particularly vulnerable. In Bangladesh, where about 860,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to escape persecution in Myanmar, the authorities fear that the coming rainy season will cause sewage to overflow into flimsy shelters and possibly spread the coronavirus.
  • A lack of information in the camps has elevated the sense of panic among people already primed for anxiety. In Bangladesh, the government has limited mobile internet access for many Rohingya, creating an information vacuum that has allowed rumors to flourish:
  • Aid agencies that have contended with donor fatigue at a time when the number of displaced people is at a record high are worried that health and economic crises in the West will mean less money for refugees. Some fear that people in wealthier nations will worry less about people in poor ones when they feel threatened at home.
cdavistinnell

Saudi Arabia moves: 24 hours that shook the Middle East - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Saudi Arabia terrorist missile Middle East Iran Lebanon Israel

shared by cdavistinnell on 07 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • A 24-hour sequence of political bombshells began on Saturday afternoon, when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, blindsiding his country's political establishment. Hours later, Saudi Arabia's official news agency reported that the country's military had intercepted a Yemen-borne ballistic missile over Riyadh.
  • Some of Saudi Arabia's most high-profile princes and businessmen were being sacked and detained in an anti-corruption drive led by bin Salman.
  • The events serve as an opening salvo for a new period in the region's crisis-ridden history, analysts say.
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  • "I think the end of ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, does not really mean the end of geostrategic struggles," London School of Economics Professor Fawaz Gerges told CNN's George Howell.
  • "I want to tell Iran and its followers that they are losing their interferences in the Arab nation affairs. Our nation will rise just as it did before and the hands that want to harm it will be cut,"
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remarks were a "wake-up call" to "take action" against Iran.
  • The missile launch was the first time the heart of the Saudi capital has been attacked.
anonymous

Iran-Iraq earthquake is deadliest of 2017 - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

iran iraq earthquake death

shared by anonymous on 14 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • At least 452 people were killed and thousands injured after a powerful earthquake struck near the border of Iran and Iraq late Sunday.
  • The earthquake hit late Sunday night with the epicenter in a rural area on the Iranian side of the border, just south of the Iraqi city of Halabja, according to the US Geological Survey, which tracks earthquake activity around the world.The quake was at a depth of 23 km (just over 14 miles), which is considered shallow, according to the survey. It was felt across the region with aftershocks hitting Pakistan, Lebanon, Kuwait and Turkey, news agencies in those countries reported.
  • The Iranian Red Crescent Society was working in the hard-hit areas Monday with sniffer dogs, debris-removal teams, and teams offering emergency shelter and treatment, said Mansoureh Bagheri, a spokeswoman for the Iranian Red Crescent in Tehran.
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  • "I thought at first that it was a huge bomb. But then I heard everyone around me screaming: 'Earthquake!'"
ecfruchtman

Syria blames Israel for Damascus airport blast - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by ecfruchtman on 29 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • ecfruchtman on 29 Apr 17
     
    Israel won't confirm nor deny responsibility for the explosion. But an Israeli government minister said "the incident in Syria" fits Israel's policy of trying to stop weapons from being shipped from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
krystalxu

The Coming Confrontation Between Israel and Iran - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...542541

Israel history Crisis policy

shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Fishman also wrote that Iran and the Assad regime are negotiating over giving Iran its own naval pier in the port of Tartus, and that Iran may actually deploy a division of soldiers in Syria.
  • Whether this happens remains to be seen. Whatever the debate over the JCPOA, there may well be a broader consensus in the administration that Iran’s growing military role in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the region must be countered.
  • Israel could be a decade away from a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and bases in Syria
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  • Whatever the American conclusion, if Iran does indeed plan to establish a large and permanent military footprint in Syria
carolinehayter

Ten grim lessons the world has learned from a decade of war in Syria | Syria | The Guar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-from-a-decade-of-war-in-syria

syria politics US international culture policy crisis history

shared by carolinehayter on 08 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Syria is the world’s war. Here are 10 reasons why 10 years of unending misery and mayhem have harmed everyone:
  • Estimates of civilian lives lost since March 2011 vary greatly, from about 117,000 to 226,000 – but the vast scale of this modern killing field is indisputable.
  • Over half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million is displaced, about 6.6 million abroad. Many are trapped in Idlib, in north-west Syria, caught between opposing forces and prey to Islamist militias.
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  • Death now comes daily to Europe’s beaches. How is this tolerable?
  • President Bashar al-Assad and cronies stand accused of a wide range of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Civilians, rescuers, health workers and hospitals are routinely (and illegally) targeted. The International Criminal Court is stymied by Russian and Chinese vetoes
  • Repeated regime use of banned chemical weapons in defiance of global treaties has grave international ramifications.
  • Russia has repeatedly hindered investigations, while the US has ignored its own “red lines”. As a result, the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention is seriously weakened.
  • A lasting beneficiary of the war is Islamic State (Isis), which overran territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014. While an international coalition eventually crushed the caliphate, Isis was behind many terrorist attacks in Europe in 2014-17.
  • The war has marked a clear shift in the Middle East balance of power from the US to Russia. After Barack Obama declined to intervene militarily, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, filled the ensuing power vacuum in 2015 – and probably saved Assad’s regime. Joe Biden’s main concern is deterring pro-Iranian militia and jihadists – witness last month’s limited air strikes. The UN-led peace process collapsed in January – and Biden seems to think it’s too late to save Syria. It would be great to be proved wrong.
  • Western states initially expressed sympathy for attempts to overthrow dictators and authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria in 2010-12. But as events turned unpredictable and Islamists got involved, the west backed away. The window that briefly opened on peaceful reform in the Arab world slammed shut. The cause of global democracy was a big loser. Syria symbolises its defeat.
  • Israel worries about the build-up of Iranian Revolutionary Guard and pro-Tehran armed forces in Syria and Lebanon. It has launched hundreds of air strikes on Iran-linked targets there, and has urged the US to do likewise
  • The failure to end the war has done enormous damage to international institutions. The UN security council in particular has been severely discredited. So, too, have UN peacemaking efforts. Yet if the UNSC’s “big five” had really wanted to stop the conflict, there is little doubt that, acting together, they could have done so. That they did not even try is the Syrian war’s most shameful legacy.
anonymous

Cyber Week in Review: April 23, 2021 | Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

www.cfr.org/...yber-week-review-april-23-2021

cybersecurity russia

shared by anonymous on 25 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • the Russian government announced that it would expel ten U.S. diplomats and blacklist eight former and incumbent U.S. officials that were “involved in drafting and implementing anti-Russia policy.” The expulsions come after the Biden administration attributed the SolarWinds breach to Russia and implemented economic sanctions.
  • The UK government has launched a security campaign this week meant to educate domestic audiences on strategies used by foreign spies to steal sensitive or classified information. The campaign, titled “think before you link,” is a response to an increasing number of British nationals being targeted by malicious state actors masquerading as online recruiters
  • The new campaign is meant to combat these foreign actors by giving “practical advice on how to identify a malicious online profile, how to respond if approached, and how to minimize the risk of being targeted in the first place.”
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  • Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced legislation on Wednesday that would bar government and local law enforcement agencies from purchasing the location data of U.S. citizens without a warrant. The “Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act” [PDF] would also criminalize the police use of “illegitimately obtained” data from technology brokers such as Clearview AI, a biometrics firm that has scraped and sold billions of photos from social media and other websites
  • Facebook announced that it had broken up two separate Palestinian hacker groups—one with alleged ties to the Palestinian Preventive Security Service (PSS), the intelligence service of the Palestinian Authority, and the other, known as Arid Viper, with reported links to the Hamas militant group.
  • the PSS-backed hackers are believed to be based in the West Bank and target entities primarily in Palestine and Syria, with a lesser focus on Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya. Their targets include journalists, critics of the Palestinian government, human rights activists, and military groups such as the Syrian opposition and Iraqi military.
brickol

Iran ends nuclear deal commitments as fallout from Suleimani killing spreads | World ne... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ing-iraqi-parliament-us-troops

politics US

shared by brickol on 06 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Iran has announced that it will no longer abide by any of the limits imposed by the unravelling 2015 nuclear deal, and Iraq’s parliament urged its leaders to expel troops from the US-led coalition, as the aftershocks of the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani reverberated through the Middle East.
  • the Iranian government said the country would no longer observe limitations on uranium enrichment, stockpiles of enriched uranium or nuclear research and development. But the statement noted that the steps could be reversed if Washington lifted its sanctions on Tehran.
  • The Iraqi parliament’s call to expel US troops was another clear sign of blowback from the assassination – and was quickly hailed by Suleimani’s supporters as a major step towards one of his main goals.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Though the Iraqi debate that called for the US exit is not binding, and would require a one-year notice period, the fact that the move was led by a prime minister regarded as a US ally showed just how divisive the killing has become, and how quickly US interests in the region could unravel as a result.
  • Shortly after Abdul Mahdi’s statement, the US announced that it was suspending operations against the Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq and a five-year-old training mission to equip local forces. A US statement claimed the suspension was a reaction to rocket attacks on US bases, carried out in recent weeks by Shia militia members.
  • Suleimani was the second most powerful person in Iran and the most influential Iranian outside the country, travelling the region like a Persian viceroy as he directed conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and as far away as Yemen. The extraordinary scenes of mourners thronging Iranian cities were a powerful testament to his popularity at home and the anger directed at the US for his killing a figure so central to Iran’s presence on the regional stage.
  • “The US army has killed these people,” Nasrallah said, referring to Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an ally of Suleimani also hit in the airstrike in Baghdad in the early hours of Friday. “We do not at all mean the American people and citizens across our region … It is up to anyone from the axis of resistance to deliver a fair punishment after Soleimani’s assassination.”
  • Withdrawing US forces from Iraq would be damaging to Washington’s interests in a region still recovering from the invasion of Iraq 17 years ago and the rampage of Isis, which forced millions of people from their homes and led to widespread destruction across the country. While Isis has been defeated on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, it remains a residual insurgent threat and there are growing signs that the terror group is reorganising, despite being on its knees in its former heartland.
  • In Iraq’s parliament, the resolution urging a US exit was passed by 170 votes to nil.
brookegoodman

Trump claims Suleimani was 'saying bad things' about US before deadly strike | US news ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...mp-suleimani-iran-drone-strike

trump politics

shared by brookegoodman on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Addressing Republican donors at his Florida resort on Friday night, Donald Trump said Qassem Suleimani was “saying bad things about our country” before the US president authorised the drone strike which killed the Iranian general and pitched the Middle East to the brink of war.
  • The speech was not open to reporters but CNN obtained a recording of Trump’s remarks at Mar-a-Lago, which it said undermined official explanations for the decision to kill Suleimani at Baghdad airport on 3 January.
  • Congress was not informed of the strike in advance, its eventual notification was heavily classified and a congressional briefing prompted bipartisan protest. Democrats have proposed legislation to rein the president in.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Iran has also admitted shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet in error, killing 176 people. Amid anti-regime protests in Tehran, the threat of a US-Iran war has receded.
  • “They’re together sir,” Trump said he was told. “Sir, they have two minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. ‘Two minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They’re in the car, they’re in an armoured vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. Thirty seconds. Ten, nine, eight ...’
  • According to CNN, Trump told his audience in Florida the death of al-Muhandis meant the US took out “two for the price of one”. He also repeated an erroneous claim that the Iraqi was “the head of Hezbollah”. Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed militant group based in Lebanon.
  • CNN said the audio of Friday’s speech also included a complaint that Conan, a Belgian Malinois dog wounded in the Baghdadi raid, “became very famous” and “got more credit than I did”.
  • ...we’re asking readers, like you, to make a contribution in support of the Guardian’s open, independent journalism. This has been a turbulent decade across the world – protest, populism, mass migration and the escalating climate crisis. The Guardian has been in every corner of the globe, reporting with tenacity, rigour and authority on the most critical events of our lifetimes. At a time when factual information is both scarcer and more essential than ever, we believe that each of us deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.
  • We have upheld our editorial independence in the face of the disintegration of traditional media – with social platforms giving rise to misinformation, the seemingly unstoppable rise of big tech and independent voices being squashed by commercial ownership. The Guardian’s independence means we can set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Our journalism is free from commercial and political bias – never influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This makes us different. It means we can challenge the powerful without fear and give a voice to those less heard.
Javier E

Denial and Defiance: Trump and His Base Downplay the Virus Ahead of the Election - The ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-base-virus.html

pandemic trump crisis politics policy denial election

shared by Javier E on 21 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • From resistance to face masks and scorn for the science of the coronavirus to predicting the imminent arrival of a vaccine while downplaying the death count, President Trump and a sizable number of his supporters have aligned emphatically behind an alternate reality minimizing a tragedy that has killed an overwhelming number of Americans and gutted the economy.
  • it is also a direct result of the look-the-other-way message that the Trump administration has sent with increasing urgency, pollsters and strategists say, as the president faces a strong challenge to re-election
  • Mr. Trump has called on Twitter for people to “LIBERATE” states that have imposed stay-at-home orders, threatened to withhold aid from Democratic governors and undercut medical professionals who have cautioned against the use of unproven medical treatments and premature school reopenings.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Polls show that Republicans approve of how he has handled the response to the virus by overwhelming margins and — unlike much of the country — think the United States has moved too slowly to reopen.
  • “President Trump was a terrible role model,” said former Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, a Republican who has said he will vote for Mr. Biden.
  • Tucker Carlson told his viewers on Fox News the other night that Covid-19 was “not dangerous to the overwhelming number of people who are destroyed by the Covid restrictions.”
  • The message has been reinforced by figures on Fox News and elsewhere in the pro-Trump news media.
  • These disagreements reflect old and conflicting beliefs about the role of government in America. Leave-me-alone libertarianism and deep suspicion of an overly intrusive federal government have long animated conservatives and taken root in the frontier West. Now those resentments, fanned by Mr. Trump, are colliding with a contagious disease and the most contentious election in recent memory.
  • “I don’t believe that the federal government could have done much more,” said Linda Jackson, 60, a Trump supporter who lives in North Cornwall Township, in Lebanon County, Pa. “The president, in my opinion, thinks outside the box, and he enlisted public-private partnerships to get the equipment, the ventilators, the P.P.E., all the things that we needed on the local level to combat the virus. And he’s really ramped up this testing for a vaccine.
  • “I think he’s done a really good job,” she said.
  • The president has tried to present himself as someone who has aggressively sought to confront the virus from the start. For any shortcomings or failures, he and his allies have tried to shift blame to others: China, the states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the World Health Organization. And he continues to provide projections that experts warn are overly optimistic or misguided. Last week he said that a vaccine could be ready “very, very soon,” and insisted that the virus would simply vanish. “It’s going to disappear,” he said in an interview with ABC News.
carolinehayter

In A Small Pennsylvania City, A Mental Crisis Call To 911 Turns Tragic : Shots - Health... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...milys-call-to-911-turns-tragic

Politics US pennsylvania shooting police policy Culture

shared by carolinehayter on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Rulennis Muñoz remembers the phone ringing on Sept. 13. Her mother was calling from the car, frustrated. Rulennis could also hear her brother Ricardo shouting in the background. Her mom told her that Ricardo, who was 27, wouldn't take his medication. He had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia five years earlier.
  • Rulennis knew that her brother was in crisis and that he needed psychiatric care. But she also knew from experience that there were few emergency resources available for Ricardo unless a judge deemed him a threat to himself or others.
  • Ricardo was becoming aggressive; he had punched the inside of the car. Back on their block, he was still yelling and upset, and couldn't be calmed. Deborah called 911 to get help for Ricardo. She didn't know that her sister was trying the non-emergency line.
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  • Rulennis called a county crisis intervention line to see if Ricardo could be committed for inpatient care. It was Sunday afternoon. The crisis worker told her to call the police to see if the officers could petition a judge to force Ricardo to go to the hospital for psychiatric treatment, in what's called an involuntary commitment. Reluctant to call 911, and wanting more information, Rulennis dialed the non-emergency police number.
  • A recording and transcript of the 911 call show that the dispatcher gave Deborah three options: police, fire or ambulance. Deborah wasn't sure, so she said "police." Then she went on to explain that Ricardo was being aggressive, had a mental illness and needed to go to the hospital.
  • When the dispatcher questioned Deborah further, she also mentioned that Ricardo was trying "to break into" his mom's house. She didn't mention that Ricardo also lived in that house. She did mention that her mother "was afraid" to go back home with him.
  • The Muñoz family has since emphasized that Ricardo was never a threat to them. However, by the time police got the message, they believed they were responding to a "domestic disturbance."
  • "Within minutes of ... that phone call, he was dead," Rulennis says.
  • A Lancaster police officer walked toward the house. Ricardo saw the officer approach through the living room window, and he ran upstairs to his bedroom. When he came back down, he had a hunting knife in his hand.
  • In video from a police body camera, an unidentified officer walks toward the Muñoz residence. Ricardo steps outside, and shouts "Get the f—k back." Ricardo comes down the stairs of the stoop and runs toward the officer. The officer starts running down the sidewalk, but after a few steps, he turns back toward Ricardo, gun in hand, and shoots him several times. Within minutes, Ricardo is dead.
  • After Ricardo crumples to the sidewalk, his mother's screams can be heard, off camera. Police made the body camera video public a few hours after Ricardo's death, in an effort to dispel rumors about Ricardo's death and quell rioting in the city. The county district attorney has since deemed the shooting justified, and the officer's name was never made public.
  • It was a tragedy for the Muñoz family — but it's not that unusual. According to a Washington Post tracker, police killed about a thousand people in the U.S. in the past 12 months. Like Ricardo, a quarter of those people had a diagnosis of a serious mental illness.
  • Across the U.S., people with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely than the overall population to be killed by police, according to one study from the mental health nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center.
  • Miguelina Peña, says she tried for years to get help for her son.
  • Among the problems, the family couldn't find a psychiatrist who was taking new patients, Peña says. Additionally, Peña speaks little English, and that made it difficult to help Ricardo enroll in health insurance, or for her to understand what treatments he was receiving. Ricardo got his prescriptions through a local nonprofit clinic for Latino men, Nuestra Clinica.
  • Instead of consistent medical care and a trusted therapeutic relationship, Ricardo got treatment that was sporadic and fueled by crisis: He often ended up in the hospital for a few days, then would be discharged back home with little or no follow-up. This happened more times than his mother and sisters can recall.
  • Laws in Pennsylvania and many other states make it difficult for a family to get psychiatric care for someone who doesn't want it; it can only be imposed on the person if he or she poses an immediate threat, says Angela Kimball, advocacy and public policy director at National Alliance on Mental illness. By that point, it's often law enforcement, rather than mental health professionals, who are called in to help.
  • "Law enforcement comes in and exerts a threatening posture," Kimball says. "For most people, that causes them to be subdued. But if you're experiencing a mental illness, that only escalates the situation."
  • "Dialing 911 will accelerate a response by emergency personnel, most often police," she says. "This option should be used for extreme crisis situations that require immediate intervention. These first responders may or may not be appropriately trained and experienced in de-escalating psychiatric emergencies."
  • The National Alliance on Mental Illness continues to advocate for more resources for families dealing with a mental health crisis. The group says more cities should create crisis response teams that can respond at all hours, without involving armed police officers in most situations.
  • There has been progress on the federal level, as well. Kimball was happy when President Trump signed a bipartisan Congressional bill, on Oct. 17, to implement a three-digit national suicide prevention hotline. The number — 988 — will eventually summon help when dialed anywhere in the country. But it could take a few years before the system is up and running.
  • "And instead of a cop just being there, there should have been other responders," Rulennis says. "There should have been someone that knew how to deal with this type of situation."
lilyrashkind

6 Times the Olympics Were Boycotted - HISTORY - 0 views

www.history.com/...olympic-boycotts

olympics history

shared by lilyrashkind on 16 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • Some Games, such as the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Berlin, saw countries (including the U.S. and the U.K.) threaten to pull out, before deciding to participate. World Wars I and II forced the cancellation of three Olympic Games—in 1916, 1940 and 1944. And other countries have been banned for a variety of reasons: Germany and Japan in 1948 because of their roles in WWII, South Africa during the era of apartheid and Russia in 2020, due to a doping scandal (although individual athletes were ultimately allowed to compete.)
  • The Details: Australia’s first hosting stint also marked the first Olympic boycott, with numerous countries withdrawing for a variety of political reasons. Less than a month before the opening ceremony, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to stop the Hungarian Revolution against the Communist regime; in protest, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland all refused to participate. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China also withdrew—and would not return until the 1980 Winter Games—because Taiwan, which it considers a breakaway province, was allowed to participate as a separate country. And, finally, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon boycotted the 1956 Olympics due to the Suez Canal Crisis following the British-Israel-French invasion of Egypt to control the waterway.
  • ‘Blood in the Water’: Despite other countries’ boycott against the Soviets, Hungary competed in the Olympics, and its athletes received support from fans, while Soviet athletes faced boos. A violent water polo match between the two teams left one Hungarian player bleeding from the head and led to a fight among spectators and athletes. Hungary, up 4-0 at the start of the brawl, was named the winner and the team eventually won the gold medal. The Soviets, for their part, went on to win the most medals for the first time. Of Note: In a show of peace, the Olympic athletes, for the first time, marched into the closing ceremony mixed together, rather than as separate nations—a tradition that continues today.
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  • The Details: China, North Korea and Indonesia chose to boycott the first Games held in an Asian country after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) declared it would disqualify athletes who competed in the 1963 Jakarta-held Games of the New Emerging Forces, created as an alternative multinational amateur competition. The boycotting countries sent many of their top athletes to the Jakarta games.
  • The Details: When New Zealand’s national rugby team defied an international sports embargo against South Africa and toured the apartheid nation earlier in the year, 28 African nations—comprising most of the continent—declared a boycott of the Olympics, which was allowing New Zealand to participate. Led by Tanzania, the boycott involved more than 400 athletes. In a separate action, Taiwan withdrew from the Games when Canada refused to let its team compete as the Republic of China. Of Note: The boycott led to hotel and ticket refunds totaling $1 million Canadian dollars. It especially affected several track and field events, where nations such as Kenya and Tanzania were frequent medal winners.
  • Afghani athletes, notably, competed in the Games. Some countries did not forbid athletes from competing as individuals under the Olympic flag, but American athletes attempting to compete faced losing their passports. A group of American athletes sued the U.S. Olympic Committee to participate but lost the case. The boycott resulted in just 80 countries competing in the Olympics, the fewest since 1956.
  • In retaliation for the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games four years earlier, 14 nations, led by the Soviet Union and including East Germany, boycotted the Los Angeles-held Olympics. Joined by most of the Eastern Bloc nations, the Soviets said they feared physical attacks and protests on American soil. "Chauvinistic sentiments and anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up in this country,” a government statement read.
  • and Joan Benoit, along with Mary Lou Retton, the first American gymnast to win the gold for all-around, became instant stars. And the Games were considered a huge financial success, with almost double the ticket sales of Montreal and earning the title as the most-seen event in TV history.
  • Angered over not being allowed to co-host the Games with South Korea, North Korea refused to attend the 1988 event in neighboring Seoul. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, accepted the IOC's invitation to compete, along with China and Eastern Bloc nations, leaving just Cuba, Ethiopia and Nicaragua joining North Korea in the boycott. “To have the Olympics in Seoul would be like having them at the Guantanamo naval base occupied by the United States," Cuba President Fidel Castro told NBC News at the time. "I wonder that, if Socialist countries refused to go to (the 1984 Olympics in) Los Angeles for security reasons, if really there is more security in Seoul than in Los Angeles.”
  • candals tarnished the Seoul Games, including reports of residents being forced from their homes and homeless people being detained at facilities in preparation for the Games. Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson made global headlines when he was stripped of his world-record-setting 100-meter victory after testing positive for steroids, and controversial boxing calls that went against South Korean athletes caused outrage.
  • North and South Korean leaders met following the events, and agreed to send a combined team to the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games. However, North Korea announced in April 2021 that it would not participate because of the coronavirus pandemic. 
Javier E

At risk: 10 ways the changing climate is creating a health emergency | Global developme... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-is-wrecking-peoples-lives-acc

health effects climate change

shared by Javier E on 16 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • 1. Floods and disease
  • As life becomes less tolerable for humans, animals and plants, things will get easier for disease-causing organisms. More than half of all known diseases have been made worse by the climate crisis
  • A warming world makes outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio more likely.
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  • World Health Organization data published in September showed there were twice as many cholera cases in 2022 than in 2021. Outbreaks were recorded in countries where cholera had been under control for years, including Yemen and Lebanon.
  • 2. Mosquitoes on the march
  • Rising temperatures and frequent floods also unlock new places where disease-carrying insects thrive. The mosquitoes that carry the viruses that cause dengue fever and mala
  • Nor is the disease confined to developing countries. There are fears that it is spreading in southern Europe, partly owing to the warm weather. More than 8 billion people could be at risk of malaria and dengue fever by 2080, scientists have warned.
  • 3. Human-animal contact
  • Many existing diseases will get more dangerous, but new illnesses could also emerge as people are increasingly forced into areas where there is wildlife. Diseases can jump from animals to humans. These diseases, such as Ebola, avian flu and Sars, are called “zoonoses” and they make up the majority of new illnesses.
  • Scientists have found that the climate crisis is helping to circulate diseases between species that previously did not encounter each other. As the planet heats up, many animal species are forced to move into new areas to find suitable conditions.
  • It has been estimated that zoonoses are responsible for as many as 2.5bn cases of human illness and 2.7m human deaths worldwide each year, and that animals have played a major part in nearly every major disease outbreak since 1970.
  • 4. Severe weather events
  • Although governments are getting better at preparing for severe weather events, nine out of 10 deaths linked to weather disasters since 1970 happened in small island nations and developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America.
  • 5. The air that we breathe
  • Outside air pollution has been linked to numerous cancers and diseases and is estimated to be responsible for more than 4m premature deaths globally each year.
  • Changing weather patterns are expected to make this already bad situation worse as more dust, rain and wildfire smoke are added to the mix. Children are especially likely to get sick from air pollution because their brains, lungs and other organs are still developing.
  • 6. The psychological cost
  • Environmental deterioration has a knock-on effect on the economic and social systems that keep society productive and happy, setting in motion a downward spiral of psychological hardship.
  • If crops are destroyed during extreme weather events, children may get less nutritious food, the consumption of which is linked to psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression.
  • When people can’t get the help they need, they may self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, which in turn makes them more likely to engage in risky behaviour (such as unprotected sex) that could result in infections such as HIV, or illnesses that can result from spending time in crowded places, such as tuberculosis.
  • In 2021, scientists studying evidence of a potential link between heat exposure and mental health found a 2.2% increase in mental health-related mortality per 1C rise in temperature.
  • 7. Salty water and perilous pregnancies
  • Drinking water is becoming saltier. One reason for this is that sea levels are rising, so there is more sea water flowing into rivers and other sources of fresh water during floods and tropical storms.
  • Taking in too much salt can lead to high blood pressure (hypertension). Over time, this condition damages the body’s veins, arteries and major organs (including the brain, heart, kidneys and eyes) since they’re working so much harder overall.
  • Hypertension is doubly dangerous for pregnant women and their babies
  • 8. Food insecurity
  • More frequent and severe droughts and floods make it harder to grow the grains, fruit and vegetables that people need to eat to stay healthy. Small island states in the Caribbean, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean bear the brunt of the effects of the crisis, in part because most people live close to sea level.
  • As a result, people who live in one of the 39 small island nations are the most likely to die from one of the four main NCDs: cancer, diabetes, heart disease and lung disease.
  • 9. The stress of extreme heat
  • The scorching temperatures this year broke records in Europe, China and North America. Heat is one of the most dangerous effects of the climate crisis and the top cause of weather-related deaths in the U
  • When it gets too hot, the body’s temperature rises faster than it can cool itself down, less blood flows to other organs, and the kidneys have to work harder. This puts strain on the heart and can lead to organ failure. Heatstroke is the most serious heat-related illness.
  • In particular, people whose jobs require long hours of physical labour in the sun face an increased risk of kidney disease as temperatures rise, research suggests. Repeated instances of heat stress can lead to permanent damage and chronic kidney disease.
  • In June, the Guardian revealed how young migrant workers were returning to Nepal with chronic kidney disease after working in extreme heat conditions in the Gulf and Malaysia. “One factor highlighted again and again is heat. Prolonged exposure to h
  • 10. Millions on the move
  • It’s hard to predict exactly how many people will be on the move because of the climate crisis, but extreme weather events are likely to make conditions worse for the more than 100 million displaced people around the world.
  • If nothing changes, the number of people who need humanitarian aid to recover from floods, storms and droughts could double by 2050,
  • That means more than 200 million people will need aid annually. The displacement of millions of people also means cramped and often unsanitary living. For example, more than 900,000 Rohingya refugees live in makeshift shelters in Bangladesh, often built on unstable ground that’s prone to landslides.
Javier E

Opinion | Israel Is In Real Danger For Three Reasons - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...israel-hamas-war.html

israel netanyahu danger reasons

shared by Javier E on 09 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • the Israel of Oct. 7 is an Israel that I’ve never been to before. They were right. It is a place in which Israelis have never lived before, a nation that Israeli generals have never had to protect before, an ally that America has never had to defend before
  • I now understand why so much has changed. It is crystal clear to me that Israel is in real danger — more danger than at any time since its War of Independence in 1948.
  • it’s for three key reasons:
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  • First, Israel is facing threats from a set of enemies who combine medieval theocratic worldviews with 21st century weaponry — and are no longer organized as small bands of militiamen, but as modern armies with brigades, battalions, cyber capabilities, long-range rockets, drones and technical support.
  • my third, deep concern.
  • But Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza entails urban, house-to-house fighting that creates thousands of civilian casualties — innocent men, women and children
  • But President Biden can only sustainably generate the support Israel needs if Israel is ready to engage in some kind of a wartime diplomatic initiative directed at the Palestinians in the West Bank — and hopefully in a post-Hamas Gaza — that indicates Israel will discuss some kind of two-state solutions if Palestinian officials can get their political house unified and in order.
  • The second danger I see is that the only conceivable way that Israel can generate the legitimacy, resources, time and allies to fight such a difficult war with so many enemies is if it has unwavering partners abroad, led by the United States.
  • Israel has the worst leader in its history, maybe in all of Jewish history — who has no will or ability to produce such an initiative.
  • Worse, I am stunned at the degree to which that leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continues to put the interests of holding on to the support of his far-right base
  • Netanyahu’s message to the world remains, in effect: “Help us defeat Hamas in Gaza, while we work to expand settlements, annex the West Bank and build a Jewish supremacist state there.”
  • This kind of chilling exuberance — Israel was built so that such a thing could never happen — explains the homemade sign I saw on a sidewalk while driving through the French Hill Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem the other day: “It’s either us or them.’’
  • The euphoric rampage of Oct. 7 that killed some 1,400 soldiers and civilians has not only hardened Israeli hearts toward the suffering of Gaza civilians. It has also inflicted a deep sense of humiliation and guilt on the Israeli Army and defense establishment, for having failed in their most basic mission of protecting the country’s borders.
  • As a result, there is a conviction in the army that they must demonstrate to the entire neighborhood — to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to the Houthis in Yemen, to the Islamic militias in Iraq to the Hamas and other fighters in the West Bank — that they will stop at nothing to re-establish the security of their borders
  • it wants to show that no one can out-crazy Israel to drive them from this region — even if the Israeli military has to defy the U.S. and even if they do not have any solid plan for governing Gaza the morning after the war.
  • “Israel cannot accept such an active threat on its borders. The whole idea of people living side by side in the Middle East was jeopardized by Hamas.”
  • This conflict is now back to its most biblical and primordial roots. This seems to be a time of eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth. The morning-after policy thinking will have to wait for the mourning after.
  • So, Netanyahu is saying that seven million Jews are going to indefinitely control the lives of five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza
  • while offering them no political horizon, nothing, by way of statehood one day on any demilitarized conditions.
  • Early on the morning of Oct. 29, as the Israeli Army was just moving into Gaza, Netanyahu tweeted and then deleted a social media post in which he blamed Israel’s defense and intelligence establishment for failing to anticipate Hamas’s surprise attack.
  • After being slammed by the public for digitally stabbing his army and intelligence chiefs in the back in the middle of a war, Netanyahu published a new tweet. “I was wrong,” he wrote, adding that “the things I said following the press conference should not have been said, and I apologize for that. I fully support the heads of [Israel’s] security services.”
  • the damage was done. How much do you suppose those military leaders trust what Netanyahu will say if the Gaza campaign stalls? What real leader would behave that way at the start of a war of survival?
  • Netanyahu and his far-right zealots have taken Israel on multiple flights of fancy in the last year: dividing the country and the army over the fraudulent judicial reform, bankrupting its future with massive investments in religious schools that teach no math and in West Bank Jewish settlements that teach no pluralism — while building up Hamas, which would never be a partner for peace, and tearing down the Palestinian Authority, the only possible partner for peace.
  • “When you go to the front, you are overwhelmed by the power of what we lost.”
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