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Mikhail Gorbachev banned from Ukraine - CNN.com - 0 views

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Gorbachev Ukraine Soviet Banned

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  • The Ukraine has banned Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, after he came out in support of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
  • Gorbachev's comments on Crimea are the latest wedge between Ukraine and Russia.
  • Ukraine's Security Service told CNN the ban was because of Gorbachev's "public support of military annexation of Crimea."
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  • Gorbachev's spokesman, Vladimir Polyakovm, said the former leader knew Ukraine was mulling the ban and had earlier brushed it off, saying he did not travel to the country anyway.
  • saying he would have acted the same way as Russian President Vladimir Putin on Crimea if he were Russia's leader today.
  • He also accused the United States of "rubbing its hands with glee" over the demise of the Soviet Union.
  • Gorbachev led the Soviet Union from 1985 until his resignation in 1991
  • The Crimean Peninsula was annexed through a controversial referendum, which returned a large majority in support of joining Russia.
  • The United States and Europe introduced a wide range of sanctions against Russia in an effort to pressure Moscow to back down from aggressive moves against Ukraine.
  • Most recently, the two countries bickered over Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian military pilot who was detained by Russia for two years, and two Russian soldiers held in Ukraine
maddieireland334

Could Russia REALLY go to war with NATO? - CNN.com - 0 views

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Russia NATO War History WWIII US

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  • A new book by General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO's deputy supreme allied commander for Europe between 2011 and 2014, evokes a potential scenario that leads to a devastating future war with Russia.
  • In his account, Russia rapidly expands its war aims by invading the Baltic States, which are NATO members, and world war ensues.
  • The latter, written at the height of the Cold War, was conceived as a "future history," supposedly looking back at the outbreak and subsequent unfolding of a full-blown NATO vs Warsaw Pact war.
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  • Russia has undoubtedly suffered economically from the global downturn in energy prices and from economic sanctions following the annexation of the Crimea, but the degree of dependence, in particular energy dependence, that Western Europe has on Russia is highly significant.
  • For example, the Nord Stream pipeline laid in international waters along the Baltic from Russia to Germany, supplies a significant -- according to EU figures, 38.7% -- proportion of Western Europe's gas needs.
  • Russia desperately needs the foreign earnings this generates
  • Consequently, while the armies and individual battles might be smaller than those in World War II, the death toll, the loss of war-making material and both sides' ability to reduce everything in their paths to rubble would make a large-scale conflict far more wide-reaching and, in terms of recovery, longer-lasting than anything we have seen before.
  • Turkey, on Russia's southern border, joined the military alliance in 1952, and since the end of the Cold War, many of Russia's former Warsaw Pact allies, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic States have signed up, too.
  • It's certainly in Putin's interests that the West cuts defense spending and has a diminished appetite for brinkmanship and it is perhaps understandable that a recently retired general should push for this to be reversed.
  • However, NATO's forces are deployed globally to a far greater extent than Russia's. And even acknowledging that Russia could achieve a temporary military advantage in, say, the Baltic, for how long and at what price?
  • the likelihood of a Kursk-style pitched battle between heavy armor is highly unlikely.
  • A real-life analysis of the Russian president's actions would suggest that he is being entirely rational and that his actions are those or an arch-realist who places the needs of his country first.
  • Such a war, employing ships, submarines and aircraft with truly global reach, would indeed be a world war and would pay scant attention to the difference between military and civilian targets: this would truly be a war among the peoples.
  • Despite Shirreff's warnings, the nightmare scenario of nuclear war is highly unlikely as neither side ultimately would wish to unleash destruction on that scale.
  • This would be total war, waged on every imaginable front, from the internet and the stock market to outer space.
maddieireland334

Belgium shows off Russian plane intercepts - CNN.com - 0 views

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Belgium Russia Plane Intercepts

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  • New photos released by Belgium give a close-up look at some interesting Russian aircraft that Belgian F-16 fighters encountered during a four-month stint as part of NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission.
  • The Russian planes intercepted by the Belgians included a Su-27 Flanker, a Tu-134AK, an Il-76, an An-72 and an An-12PPS, according to The Aviationist blog, which reported on the photos last week
  • In April, the U.S. accused a Russian Su-27 jet of doing a barrel roll over a U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea.
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  • Russia denied its aircraft performed any dangerous maneuvers as it intercepted the U.S. plane.
maddieireland334

Never-Trump conservatives search for alternative - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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Trump Election US Alternative Conservatives

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  • Bill Kristol and other Never-Trump Republicans have done extensive polling and talked to potential candidates and financial backers about how to stop Donald Trump, according to sources familiar with those efforts.
  • They have searched feverishly in recent weeks for a candidate of stature to make an independent conservative White House bid. But like Kinzinger, no potential candidate has yet bitten.
  • Kinzinger, previously a prominent surrogate for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would have undertaken a third party run "literally to save the union," according to a source familiar with his thinking, because both Clinton and Trump scare him.
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  • The efforts to recruit an independent conservative candidate come as Republican establishment figures increasingly coalesce around Trump's bid. Since effectively securing the nomination on May 3 with his Indiana primary win, more members of Congress have voiced support for Trump, as have former Republican rivals like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
  • But logistical hurdles to an independent bid are increasing. Ballot deadlines for independent candidates have either passed or soon will.
  • Sources familiar with efforts by Kristol and other Never-Trump Republicans say they have done extensive polling and gathered other private data, and talked to potential candidates and financial backers.
maddieireland334

Eric Holder now says Edward Snowden performed 'public service' - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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Holder Snowden Rights Privacy US

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  • Chicago (CNN)Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a "public service" by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques, but still must pay a penalty for illegally leaking a trove of classified intelligence documents.
  • Holder said Snowden jeopardized America's security interests by leaking classified information while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency in 2013.
  • Snowden, who has spent the last few years in exile in Russia, should return to the U.S. to deal with the consequences, Holder noted.
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  • "But, as I think you're quite familiar, the Espionage Act does not permit a public interest defense. You're not allowed to speak the word 'whistleblower' at trial."
  • During the hour-long conversation with Axelrod, Holder -- the country's first African-American attorney general -- also accused presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump of playing the race card in his campaign.
  • "The fact that he questioned the legitimacy of President Obama by questioning where he was born, what he's said about Mexicans...I think there's a race-based component to his campaign. I think he appeals too often to the worst side of us as Americans."
maddieireland334

Second minister in new Brazil government quits - BBC News - 0 views

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Brazil Government Minister

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  • Fabiano Silveira was in charge of the ministry tasked with fighting corruption but left after a recording was made public, which seems to show him trying to derail a corruption investigation at the state oil company.
  • She is accused of massaging budget figures ahead of her re-election in 2014, and is due to be tried in the senate in the coming months.
  • She has argued that impeachment proceedings against her are designed to stop the investigation into Petrobras.
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  • He is also heard appearing to criticize investigators in the Petrobras investigation, which has implicated dozens of senior politicians and has led to the jailing of several top business executives.
maddieireland334

Kenya tells longtime refugees living in camps to go home - 0 views

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Kenya Refugees Crisis

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  • Yussuf, who has lived here most of his life, has to leave by November because Kenya is shutting all its refugee camps, displacing 600,000 people. The government said the camps have become infiltrated by terrorists
  • Now the Kenya government wants to repatriate Dadaab refugees to Somalia. The government also wants to close another camp, Kakuma, that houses refugees from South Sudan, where a fragile cease-fire has taken hold in that country’s civil war.
  • Kenya announced in May that it would will shutter the camps by November and send refugees back to Somalia and elsewhere after numerous attacks staged by al-Shabab, a Somalia terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda.
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  • Al-Shabab militants also attacked Kenyan peacekeeping troops in Somalia, where the central government in Mogadishu is weak. Al-Shabab, hoping to establish a radical Islamic theocracy, claims it wants Kenyan forces to leave Somalia.
  • Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery said Kenyan security forces have thwarted numerous al-Shabab terrorism attempts over the years by arresting terror suspects at the Dadaab refugee complex and recovering caches of arms there.
  • Dadaab and Kakuma are also hotbeds for poaching, human trafficking, illegal arms sales and other criminal activities, he added.
  • But refugees at the camp say the government is punishing them for the mistakes of others.
  • Others said they could not afford to leave the camp.
  • The United States has  joined the United Nations and human rights groups in urging Kenya to rescind its decision to shut down the refugee camps.
  • Meanwhile, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights urged the international community to help Kenya shoulder the burden of hosting the refugees to avoid closing the camps.
maddieireland334

Thailand's thoughtcrime arrests are getting dangerously bizarre - 0 views

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Thailand Arrests Crime Rights

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  • Thailand is now entering its third year under military dictatorship, a reign established when generals seized power from an elected government on May 22, 2014.
  • The army has vowed to use its sweeping powers to heal a nation torn by class resentment.
  • When the army seized power two years ago, it justified its takeover by promising a wave of grand reforms. Thailand, the generals said, would become a nation purged of corruption and of the recurring, sometimes bloody street protests that have convulsed the political order for nearly a decade
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  • Indeed, Thailand has endured 13 successful coups since 1932, the last year in which the nation (then called Siam) was directly ruled by monarchs.
  • This can involve several days of interrogation and re-education at an army camp. Failure to attend is a crime. “The United States has the Patriot Act to deal with the situation after 9/11,” Gen. Werachon said. “This is the same.”
  • Even less fortunate are those accused of Thailand’s most serious speech-related crime: disrespecting the royal family
  • But disrespect toward the king, who is now 88 and in ailing health, is hardly common. He is widely revered and his image is ubiquitous — on banknotes, gilded street portraits and glowing portrayals on television.
  • Though corruption persists and the economy is struggling, few are eager to risk confronting a military with near-absolute power.
  • A poll released six months ago by Thailand’s statistics office, which is beholden to the military government, dubiously suggests that 99% of Thais are happy under the junta.
  • “They made it clear from day one that they would not tolerate even the slightest dissent,” Sunai said. “Now these measures send a very clear signal that Thailand is falling deeper and deeper into military dictatorship.”
  • The public will vote on the junta’s favored constitution in August. But ahead of the referendum, debate is stifled. The penalty for those found guilty of “influencing a voter”? Up to 10 years in prison.
maddieireland334

In Austrian Election, Far-Right Candidate Is Deadlocked With Rival - The New York Times - 0 views

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Austria Election Policy Candidate

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  • The election for president of Austria turned into a cliffhanger on Sunday, with a former Green Party leader battling a populist who is seeking to become the first far-right politician to be elected head of state in Europe since 1945.
  • With all votes cast on Sunday counted, the race between Norbert Hofer, 45, of the far-right Freedom Party, and Alexander Van der Bellen, a 72-year-old economist, was too close to call. The outcome will be determined by mail-in votes.
  • “This signifies the split of the country, no doubt about it,” said Hans Rauscher, a centrist columnist for the newspaper Der Standard. “You can work at changing that, but it is, of course, the result of an anti-establishment mood.”
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  • Mr. Van der Bellen encouraged supporters to get colleagues, friends and family out for what he said was a vote with huge implications for Austria’s future. He urged voters to support “an open, Europe-friendly, Europe-conscious Austria.”
  • Mr. Hofer, by contrast, addressed thousands of supporters at a boisterous two-hour rally in one of his party’s Vienna strongholds. He stressed that he welcomed foreigners and migrants to Austria, but only if they obeyed its laws.
maddieireland334

A Soviet-Era Mind-Set at the Market - The New York Times - 0 views

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Soviet History Market Opinion

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  • Communism ended in 1989, with the fall of the Soviet empire, when I was 10, but the changes were slow at first.
  • The bookstore that never changed its window display was no longer limited to selling titles approved by the government. A statue of the Virgin Mary, forbidden under communism, went up in the central square.
  • Restaurants and cafes, once a rarity, began to appear in the brick-­and-­cobblestone downtown
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  • Although privately owned, the shop was set up like an old Soviet-­style store, where you wait in line and ask an attendant for what you need.
  • Each time we passed that shop during the rest of the trip, I refused to go in. I felt ashamed for not speaking up. I knew that in America, others would have supported me for saying something
  • From childhood, I was taught never to question anyone in authority, from teachers and doctors to shopkeepers. Now I was 6 years old again, in a panic that I forgot the assignment of taking a toothbrush to school.
  • We could all see that the onion was bad; the outer layers were moldy and brown. Still, no one said anything. One woman nodded as if in agreement. My mother and I just exchanged looks.
  • Until then, we had all been holding private conversations. Now we were silent, waiting for the tirade we knew was coming.
  • But in Slovakia, for all the changes, I knew that I couldn’t count on people to stand with me, that for those who experienced communism, there is still an underlying fear we cannot shake.
maddieireland334

Venezuela Drifts Into New Territory: Hunger, Blackouts and Government Shutdown - The Ne... - 0 views

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Venezuela Crisis Hunger Blackouts

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  • This country has long been accustomed to painful shortages, even of basic foods. But Venezuela keeps drifting further into uncharted territory.
  • In recent weeks, the government has taken what may be one of the most desperate measures ever by a country to save electricity: A shutdown of many of its offices for all but two half-days each week.
  • The regional tensions came to a head last week when Mr. Maduro went on television to chide the Organization of American States, which has criticized Venezuela’s handling of the economic and political crises.
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  • Last week, protests turned violent in parts of the country where demonstrators demanded empty supermarkets be resupplied. And on Friday, the government said it would continue its truncated workweek for an additional 15 days.
  • American officials say the multiplying crises have led Mr. Maduro to fall out of favor with members of his own socialist party, who they believe may turn on him, leading to chaos in the streets.
  • Many people cannot make international calls from their phones because of a dispute between the government and phone companies over currency regulations and rates.
  • Mr. Almagro responded with an open letter blasting the president, calling on him to allow the recall referendum his opponents are pushing this year to remove Mr. Maduro from office.
  • Venezuela’s public schools are now closed on Fridays, another effort to save electricity. So Ms. González was waiting in line with her elder child at an A.T.M., while her husband watched over the other one at home.
  • Venezuela’s government says the problems are the result of an “economic war” being waged by elites who are hoarding supplies, as well as the American government’s efforts to destabilize the country.
  • But most economists agree that Venezuela is suffering from years of economic mismanagement, including over-dependence on oil and price controls that led many businesses to stop making products.
  • On a recent day in the downtown government center, pedestrians milled about, but nearly every building — including several museums, the public registry office and a Social Security center — was empty, giving the appearance of a holiday.
maddieireland334

Iran-Led Push to Retake Falluja From ISIS Worries U.S. - The New York Times - 0 views

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Iran US ISIS Crisis Fulluja History

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  • American commandos are on the front lines in Syria in a new push toward the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa, but in Iraq it is an entirely different story: Iran, not the United States, has become the face of an operation to retake the jihadist stronghold of Falluja from the militant group.
  • On the outskirts of Falluja, tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, police officers and Shiite militiamen backed by Iran are preparing for an assault on the Sunni city, raising fears of a sectarian blood bath
  • But the United States has long believed that Iran’s role, which relies on militias accused of sectarian abuses, can make matters worse by angering Sunnis and making them more sympathetic to the militants.
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  • The battle over Falluja has evolved into yet another example of how United States and Iranian interests seemingly converge and clash at the same time in Iraq. Both want to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
  • In Syria, where the government of Bashar al-Assad is an enemy, America’s ally is the Kurds.
  • But in Iraq, where the United States backs the central government, and trains and advises the Iraqi Army, it has been limited by the role of Iran, the most powerful foreign power inside the country.
  • In an extraordinary statement on Wednesday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the world’s pre-eminent Shiite religious leader, who lives in Najaf in southern Iraq and is said to be concerned by Iran’s growing role in Iraq, urged security forces and militia to restrain themselves and abide by “the standard behaviors of jihad.”
  • The United States has thousands of military personnel in Iraq and has trained Iraqi security forces for nearly two years, yet is largely on the sidelines in the battle to retake Falluja. It says its air and artillery strikes have killed dozens of Islamic State fighters, including the group’s Falluja commander.
  • Militiamen have plastered artillery shells with the name of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite cleric close to Iran whose execution this year by Saudi Arabia, a Sunni power, deepened the region’s sectarian divide, before firing them at Falluja.
  • Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has stressed that civilians must be protected in the operation and ordered that humanitarian corridors be opened to allow civilians to leave the city safely, disavowed the militia leader’s comments.
  • She said that some residents had been killed for refusing to fight for the jihadists, and that those inside were surviving on old stacks of rice, a few dates and water from unsafe sources such as drainage ditches.
  • To allay fears that the battle for Falluja will heighten sectarian tensions, Iraqi officials, including Mr. Abadi, and militia leaders have said they will adhere to a battle plan that calls for the militias not to participate in the assault on the city.
  • The American military role in Iraq has been limited mostly to airstrikes and the training of the army. But, as in northern Syria, there are also Special Forces soldiers in Iraq, carrying out raids on Islamic State targets.
  • Iraq’s elite counterterror forces are preparing to lead the assault on Falluja; they have long worked closely with the United States and are considered among the few forces loyal to the country and not to a sect.
  • A big question going into the battle is whether the Islamic State fighters will dig in and fight or, as they have in some other battles, throw away their weapons and try to melt into the civilian population.
  • For the United States, there is also the matter of history: Led by the Marines, its forces fought two bloody battles for Falluja in 2004. Mindful of this past, American officials would have preferred that the Iraqis left Falluja alone for now and focused on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul in the north.
  • The American military’s assault on Falluja in April of 2004 was in retaliation for an episode that became an early symbol of a war spiraling out of control, the image of it as indelible as it was gruesome: the bodies of four Blackwater contractors dangling from the ironwork of a bridge.
maddieireland334

Argentine Court Confirms a Deadly Legacy of Dictatorships - The New York Times - 0 views

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Argentina Crisis Dictatorship History Trial

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  • Mr. Molfino’s mother, Noemí Gianotti de Molfino, a 54-year-old Argentine, was a victim of Operation Condor, a plan devised by six South American military governments in the 1970s to hunt down and eliminate leftist dissidents across national borders.
  • In a landmark trial that spanned three years and involved the cases of more than 100 victims, a four-judge panel on Friday convicted and sentenced 14 former military officers for their roles in Operation Condor, a scheme of kidnappings, torture and killings.
  • For the first time, a court in the region ruled that the leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay had worked together in a regionwide criminal conspiracy against opponents, some of whom had fled to exile in neighboring countries, during an era of military dictatorships in the 1970s and ’80s.
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  • South American military governments in the 1970s and 1980s kidnapped and murdered thousands of rebel guerrillas and dissidents. Operation Condor accounted for at least 377, according to a joint report by a unit of Unesco and the Argentine government in 2015.
  • In other South American countries, efforts to bring violators of human rights to justice have sputtered. But over the past decade, Argentina has carried out scores of trials in which at least 666 people have been convicted of crimes during Argentina’s “dirty war” of the 1970s and ’80s.
  • Judges received testimony from about 370 witnesses over three years, but some of defendants died during the trial, annulling the cases of their victims. For their relatives, the convictions on Friday were tinged with frustration.
  • Sara Rita Méndez, 72, a survivor of Operation Condor who was kidnapped and tortured in Argentina in 1976 and then detained for years in her native Uruguay, said: “These trials are fundamental. They generate confidence in society.”
  • Operation Condor was conceived in November 1975 during meetings hosted by the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who enlisted the leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Peru and Ecuador joined later.
  • With President Obama’s recent order to declassify additional American records that could reveal what the United States government knew about Argentina’s “dirty war,” hopes of piercing the shroud of secrecy surrounding other atrocities of the era have been revived, although it is unclear when the documents will become available.
maddieireland334

Rise of Donald Trump Tracks Growing Debate Over Global Fascism - The New York Times - 0 views

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Trump Fascism History Policy Leaders

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  • The comparison was inflammatory, to say the least. Former Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts equated Donald J. Trump’s immigration plan with Kristallnacht, the night of horror in 1938 when rampaging Nazis smashed Jewish homes and businesses in Germany and killed scores of Jews.
  • Mr. Trump’s campaign has engendered impassioned debate about the nature of his appeal and warnings from critics on the left and the right about the potential rise of fascism in the United States.
  • In Hungary, an authoritarian government has clamped down on the news media and erected razor wire fences to keep out migrants.
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  • To supporters, such comparisons are deeply unfair smear tactics used to tar conservatives and scare voters.
  • Traditional parties in France, Germany, Greece and elsewhere have been challenged by nationalist movements amid an economic crisis and waves of migrants.
  • Americans are used to the idea that other countries may be vulnerable to such movements, but while figures like Father Charles Coughlin, the demagogic radio broadcaster, enjoyed wide followings in the 1930s, neither major party has ever nominated anyone quite like Mr. Trump.
  • President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico criticized Mr. Trump’s plans to build a wall on the border and to bar Muslims from entering the United States. “
  • Mr. Trump’s allies dismiss the criticism as politically motivated and historically suspect. The former House speaker Newt Gingrich,
  • Moreover, fascists believe in strong state control, not get-government-off-your-back individualism and deregulation. Advertisement Continue reading the main story
  • The debate about terminology may ignore the seriousness of the conditions that gave rise to Mr. Trump and his European counterparts. The New York real estate developer has tapped into a deep discontent in a country where many feel left behind while Wall Street banks get bailouts, newcomers take jobs, terrorists threaten innocents and China rises economically at America’s expense.
  • Roger Eatwell, a professor at the University of Bath, in England, calls it “illiberal democracy,” a form of government that keeps the trappings of democracy without the reality.
  • The problem, she added, is that “the Western political leadership at the moment is too weak to fight the tide.”
maddieireland334

Drought and 'Rice First' Policy Imperil Vietnamese Farmers - The New York Times - 1 views

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Vietnam Policy Crisis Rice History

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  • When the rice shoots began to wither on Lam Thi Loi’s farm in the heart of the Mekong Delta, a usually verdant region of Vietnam, she faced a hard choice: Let them die in the parched earth, or pump salty water from the river to give them a chance.
  • The Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s premier rice growing region, is suffering its worst drought since French colonial administrators began recording statistics in 1926.
  • The increasingly dramatic effect of El Niño, the weather phenomenon that causes excessive heat and reduced rainfall in Southeast Asia, is the prime reason for the crop failures in the delta, scientists say. But it is not the only one.
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  • The Communist government’s insistence that farmers grow three rice crops a year, instead of the traditional one or two, has depleted the soil of nutrients, exacerbating the impact of the drought, they say.
  • And water from the sea has invaded the lower reaches of the Mekong River, which is more shallow than usual, sweeping saline water farther up the delta than ever before and wiping out rice fields
  • Saline water has long been invading the delta, but because of the drought there is not enough fresh water in the river and its distributaries to dilute the seawater.
  • The rice crop crisis has highlighted the need for the government to adjust its heavy emphasis on rice growing, and to encourage shrimp farming as a more profitable and practical substitute,
  • “Vietnam is the second-biggest rice exporter after Thailand,”
  • The government is stuck on a “rice first” policy that harks back to the 1970s, after the Communist victory in the Vietnam War, when the people were hungry and the country was isolated, bereft of trading partners and without a manufacturing sector.
  • Many farmers know the saline water is good for producing shrimp, Mr. Gorman said, but while they get subsidies for rice, they are not encouraged to switch to shrimp.
  • A 2010 study commissioned by the Mekong River Commission warned against the building of 11 dams in Laos and Cambodia because they would trap valuable sediment and stop it from reaching the delta. The report was ignored, two of the dams are under construction, and the rest are scheduled to go ahead.
  • In a rare concession to Vietnam, the Chinese released water from dams in Yunnan Province in March, but the flow was too small to make a difference to the failing rice crops, the Vietnamese authorities said.
  • Some farmers have fled to Ho Chi Minh City to find work, leaving villages with only half their population.
  • The signs of well-being will not last, said Mr. Thien, who was one of the authors of the 2010 report on the dams. With so many dams coming on line upstream, the lack of sediment will eventually kill the delta, leaving it a wasteland in the next 100 years or so.
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Hiroshima bombing was Japan's fault, says Chinese state media - The Washington Post - 0 views

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Hiroshima Obama History China

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  • President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima, site of the first use of a nuclear bomb in warfare more than seven decades ago. He did not apologize for his nation's act — which led to the deaths of an estimated 140,000 people — but made a somber speech about the need for disarmament.
  • The decision by President Harry Truman to deploy this terrifying weapon was, according to the China Daily, "a bid to bring an early end to the war and prevent protracted warfare from claiming even more lives."
  • The editorial reminded all that Japan's imperialist regime had brought on the onslaught after a decade of expansionist war and brutal occupation elsewhere in Asia.
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  • "It was the war of aggression the Japanese militarist government launched against its neighbors and its refusal to accept its failure that had led to U.S. dropping the atomic bombs," it concluded.
  • To this day, governments in Beijing and Seoul both complain about Japan's perceived failures to fully atone for and properly remember the violence unleashed by its military.
  • The Chinese rhetoric was similar to what was aired in April following U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry's own visit to Hiroshima.
  • An editorial by the state-run Xinhua news agency said "it is Tokyo's lasting moral obligation to let that notorious chapter known by every citizen of the country and make compensations and apologies fair and square to the affected individuals and facilities, not just in Japan but also in other stricken nations."
maddieireland334

Does Hillary Clinton face a different standard for honesty? - The Washington Post - 0 views

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Clinton Election US Policy Honesty Women Trump

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  • On the list of topics researchers -- sociologists, political scientists, economists, criminologists, workplace rule-makers, pollsters and even biologists -- have been known to study is honesty.
  • With all the talk this week and during this entire campaign about honesty, transparency, emails and tax returns in the 2016 race, The Fix thought it time to examine just how gender and honesty play out in politics.
  • Dittmar has not been involved in any of the presidential campaigns but does manage a nonpartisan project of CAWP and the Barbara Lee Family Foundation called Presidential Gender Watch 2016. Presidential Gender Watch tracks, analyzes, and illuminates gender dynamics in the 2016 race.
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  • Dolan has donated what she described as a "small amount" to Clinton but has not otherwise been involved in any of the presidential campaigns.
  • However, this year provides an important reminder that women are not a monolithic voting bloc. While we often talk about women voters collectively or “the women’s vote,” there are key differences among women by race and ethnicity, party and ideology, and age, among other things.
  • For example, while the majority of women are Democrats, Trump’s gender problems have put a spotlight on Republican women – a group of women voters often overlooked
  • Black women voted at the highest rate of any race and gender subgroup in 2008 and 2012, and 96 percent of black women voted for Barack Obama.
  • Last, there has been some discussion of Clinton’s “man problem” in a race against Trump, but talking about men and women’s voting behavior requires historical context.
  • Her candidacy raises questions as to whether any woman can be president of the United States, whether female presidential candidates can ever overcome voter stereotypes and media narratives that question women’s suitability for the White House.
  • they benefit from a gendered double standard where men are automatically presumed qualified for public office and women are not.
  • However, I do think there is a difference between what voters want and what they expect in politicians. For example, just 29 percent of voters in a 2015 Pew poll said elected officials are honest. Unfortunately, then, the bar is low.
  • At the same time, a Quinnipiac poll from earlier this year showed that just 16 percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Republicans rated honesty and trustworthiness as most important when asked to rate those traits alongside other key indicators of vote choice like caring about needs and problems of people like them, being a strong leader, having the right experience, sharing their values, and having the best chance of winning.
  • In voting for the president, voters tend to prioritize masculine traits (toughness, decisiveness) over feminine traits (empathy, honesty).
  • Research on gender stereotypes has shown that women are often perceived as more honest than their male counterparts.
  • For example, a 2014 Pew poll found that 34 percent of respondents believe that women in high-level political offices are better than men at being honest and ethical, while just 3 percent see men as better on the same traits.
  •  Voters typically draw on gender stereotypes in evaluating political candidates and tend to punish candidates who diverge from gender expectations. Because the generic female candidate is presumed more honest than the generic male candidate, voters judge a female candidate more harshly if she appears to violate the expectation of honesty.
  • Less than one-third of voters view both Clinton and Trump as honest and trustworthy, while 57 percent do not view either candidate as holding these traits.
  • These ratings may indicate perceptions of honesty and trustworthiness may have relatively little influence on outcomes this year, since no candidate appears to have an advantage.
  • Clinton’s honesty problem may actually have more detrimental effects than if she were a man.
  • While both candidates would do well to improve voter perceptions of their honesty, they face steep climbs in reversing reputations and will confront continued obstacles in the form of increasing negative attacks on past and present behavior.
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How America Lost Its Nerve - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...484655

US History Economy

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  • Americans today are strangely averse to change. They are less likely to switch jobs, or move between states, or create new companies than they were 30 years ago.
  • In economist-speak, "the U.S. labor market has experienced marked declines in fluidity along a variety of dimensions."
  • They are a driving force behind regional inequality, and the phenomenon stems from a significant root cause: the cost of having a place to live in America’s most productive cities.
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  • The fraction of workers required to hold a government-issued license has sextupled since the 1950s, from less than 5 percent to almost 30 percent today. It’s harder to switch into an industry, especially one in a new state, that’s larded with licensing.
  • States with more workers in routine-intensive tasks, like administrative duties, actually saw smaller declines in labor market fluidity.
  • Young people are more likely to switch jobs and move around.
  • If young people are tumbleweeds, adults are like trees: They grow roots, and they tend to stay put. So, as a country ages, it should become less dynamic.
  • . On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that productivity “is set to fall in the U.S. for the first time in more than three decades.”
  • Geographic mobility was very high in the U.S. in the 19th century. This was initially due to the settling of the western frontier. But even after the “closing" of the frontier in 1890, mobility remained high for decades, according to the economists Jason Long and Joseph Ferrie.
  • In every major city, there are many stores, health-care facilities, and insurance offices. By and large, less educated workers might be less willing to move between states because they assume every area has generally the same type of work.
  • somebody moving from a small farm to Washington, D.C., would have to visit the capital to understand its culture, job mix, pretty falls, and humid summers. But today’s potential movers are more informed and therefore more strategic:
  • Between 1880 and 1980, people generally moved from poor states to rich states, seeking the best jobs. “The creation of a single automobile plant—Ford’s River Rouge complex, completed in 1928—boosted Michigan’s population by creating more than 100,000 workers,” as Tim Noah reported. Migration promoted geographical equality.
  • Smaller counties used to lead the nation in the growth in new businesses even through the early 1990s. But this decade, small counties have lost businesses, while venture capital, the lifeblood of high-growth startups, clustered in a handful of metros.
  • Land-use policies prevent more middle-class families from living in productive areas, because housing becomes too expensive. Meanwhile, the rich can afford to cluster in a handful of metros where entrepreneurship is a norm, while business dynamism falls in the rest of the country.
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Senator Mike Lee Fears Enrolling Women in the Selective Service Could Lead to Mandatory... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...484571

Mike Lee Women Military US Policy

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  • (a) Lord, save us from this herd of retrograde, sexist swine; (b) Thank heavens a few leaders are still willing to stand up to such PC nonsense; (c) Wait! There hasn’t been a draft since 1973.
  • Back in February, after White House contenders Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio voiced support for the move, National Review denounced this “step toward barbarism.” “Men should protect women,” the magazine asserted. “They should not shelter behind mothers and daughters.”
  • And presidential wannabe Ted Cruz was aiming straight at his base’s paternalistic gut when—after calling Christie, Bush, and Rubio “nuts”—he raised the specter of his own wee daughters being forced into military fatigues and decried the very notion as “immoral.”
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  • Specifically, the senator has become convinced that the push to register every young American for the draft, women included, is in fact a stalking horse for Big Government’s push to establish a system of compulsory national service.
  • One is the move (championed by Senator John McCain) to open the draft to women. The other aims to create a “National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service” that would “consider methods to increase participation in military, national, and public service in order to address national security and other public service needs of the nation.”
  • Today, more funding is made available to create additional Americorps jobs; tomorrow, 18-year-olds are being forced to man soup kitchens in the name of patriotism.
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Germany's AfD Party and Its Anti-Islam Platform - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...484700

Germany Crisis Islam AfD

shared by maddieireland334 on 29 May 16 - No Cached
  • After racking up historic gains in regional elections in March, the party this month adopted a new manifesto insisting that “Islam is not part of Germany.”
  • A meeting between the AfD and Muslim leaders broke down this week after the president of the Central Council of Muslims refused to retract previous comments comparing the AfD to Nazis.
  • It called for empowering national governments to ditch the euro, limiting state bailouts, and mandating national referenda for certain EU policies, alongside scintillating stipulations about European Central Bank maneuvers and alternative funding for renewable-energy subsidies.
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  • Last month’s manifesto not only declared Islam incompatible with German legal and cultural values, but also endorsed a ban on burqas and the call to prayer.
  • First, despite having a woman at the helm in the figure of Frauke Petry (as well as trigger-happy aristocrat Beatrix von Storch, who has advocated using deadly force  against illegal migrants at the border, as deputy party chief), AfD supporters are predominantly male.
  • As the German daily Die Zeit pointed out, that means AfD support follows roughly the same pattern as support for the intensely anti-Islamic pan-European movement PEGIDA (“Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West”).
  • Theories abound as to why and to what extent men are more likely to vote for far-right or xenophobic platforms than women—a pattern that holds with Trump supporters in the United States, as well as voters for Austria’s far-right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer, who just barely lost that country’s election this week.
  • A second trend in AfD demographics involves class. Originally, professors, journalists, and business leaders dominated the party, with over half the founding members in 2013 sporting a “Dr.” in front of their names.
  • Third comes age. “[AfD supporters] are youngish to middle-aged,” said Arzheimer. “Interestingly, voters over 60 seem to shy from voting for the AfD because they're still tied to the Christian Democrats,” Merkel’s center-right party.
  • When Bernd Lucke founded the AfD, he intended to win voters both from the Christian Democrats and Germany’s liberal party, the Free Democratic Party (FDP).
  • Crucially, Arzheimer pointed out, the AfD manages to attract NPD voters while also remaining “acceptable for a much larger group of the German population.”
  • Part of AfD’s strength so far has been its ability to capitalize on intense concerns about the economy and immigration with increasingly inflammatory rhetoric while maintaining a sheen of respectability—crucial in German politics, where incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is a criminal offense.
  • The AfD’s fragility may be what sets it apart both from right-wing parties further east and the newly nativist turn in the United States.
  • Art made a similar point, but turned westward. “There’s been a major containment of this far-right nativism in Germany … but it’s the United States in which it’s become in fact a part of the political system.”
  • There’s a term in German, he mused: ausgegrenzt, translating roughly to “excluded” or “marginalized,” but with a literal translation closer to “beyond limits” or “out of bounds.” Those who wanted the NPD banned wanted it “ausgegrenzt.”
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