Month: February 2018

7 Turkish Soldiers Killed in Deadliest Day of Syrian Offensive

Posted on by SeeEA

Turkey’s military says it has suffered its single deadliest day in its offensive against Syrian militias in northern Syria.

Seven soldiers were killed Saturday.

Five were killed in the Afrin region when their tank came under attack.

Two soldiers were killed earlier in the day, one near the tank attack, the other along Turkey’s border with Syria.

In retaliation Turkey said its jets later struck Kurdish targets in the area from which the attack on the tank came.

Turkey’s “Olive Branch” operation was launched late last month against the YPG, Kurdish forces in Syria, a militia seen by Ankara as a terrorist group linked to Kurdish separatists in Turkey. Turkey has lost a total of 14 soldiers in its operation.

Ibrahim Kalin, a Turkish presidential spokesman, said Saturday that Turkey will not tolerate the presence of the YPG anywhere along it border with Syria.
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GOP-Controlled Statehouses Test Legal Limits of Abortion

Posted on by SeeUS

Republicans who control a majority of the nation’s statehouses are considering a wide range of abortion legislation that could test the government’s legal ability to restrict a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

The Mississippi House passed a bill Friday that would make the state the only one to ban all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In Missouri, lawmakers heard testimony earlier in the week on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks.

The Ohio House is expected to consider bills, already passed in the Senate, that would prohibit the most common type of procedure used to end pregnancies after 13 weeks and require that fetal remains be buried or cremated.

​Crucial question

Abortion is a perennial hot button issue in statehouses across the country. Republican-controlled states have passed hundreds of bills since 2011 restricting access to the procedure while Democratic-led states have taken steps in the other direction.

The early weeks of this year’s state legislative sessions have seen a flurry of activity around the issue. It comes as activists on both sides say they expect the U.S. Supreme Court to soon consider a question that remains unclear: How far can states go in restricting abortion in the interest of preserving and promoting fetal life?

The state bills debated since the start of the year “are all tests designed to see how far government power to legislate on behalf of a fetus can reach,” said Jessica Mason Pieklo, who has been tracking legislation as the senior legal analyst for Rewire, a website that promotes views supporting abortion rights.

She said the outcome will determine whether states can legally ban abortion after a specific time period and outlaw specific medical procedures. Advocates for abortion rights say those strategies undermine the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling that women have the right to terminate pregnancies until a fetus is viable.

​Women speak out

In Utah, critics have warned that a pending bill to prevent doctors from performing abortions on the basis of a Down syndrome diagnosis is unconstitutional. But its co-sponsor, Republican state Sen. Curt Bramble, said he is willing to defend the bill in court because its goal is to protect unborn children.

“There are times if the Supreme Court got it wrong, it is appropriate to push back,” said Bramble, an accountant from Provo.

The anti-abortion bills have drawn opposition from women who say they have made the excruciating choice to terminate a pregnancy, often after discovering serious fetal abnormalities.

“A 20-week abortion ban sounds OK, but if that gets passed, what’s next — 18 weeks, 15 weeks? At what point does it make abortion truly illegal?” said Robin Utz of St. Louis, 38, who submitted testimony this week against the Missouri bill. “It’s terrifying and it’s willfully ignorant.”

Utz recounted terminating her pregnancy in its 21st week in November 2016, after learning her daughter would be born with a fatal kidney disease if she survived birth. She said doctors told her that dilation and evacuation, the most common abortion procedure in the second trimester, was the safest way to terminate the pregnancy.

Court challenges underway

Undeterred by such stories, the National Right to Life Committee and its allies have been pushing for state laws that ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and outlaw dilation and evacuation. Supporters of both measures argue that fetuses are capable of feeling pain after 20 weeks and call the procedure “dismemberment abortion.”

Several court challenges to both types of laws are underway, with federal appeals courts considering the “dismemberment abortion” bans approved last year in Texas and Arkansas. The Kansas Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the first-in-the-nation ban passed in that state three years ago.

Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation at the National Right to Life Committee, said the model state laws drafted by her group are aimed at U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, a swing vote who wrote the court’s 2007 opinion upholding a federal ban on a procedure critics call partial-birth abortion.

She said the court could use similar reasoning to prohibit dilation and evacuation and noted it has never considered whether states have an interest in protecting fetuses from pain.

“We did draft these laws with the bigger picture in mind,” Duran said.

Texas ruling shifts focus

The shifted focus comes after the court dealt the anti-abortion movement a blow in 2016 by ruling that strict Texas regulations on abortion clinics and doctors were an undue burden on abortion access and unconstitutional.

Anti-abortion groups hope President Donald Trump will be able to nominate one or more justices to the Supreme Court following last year’s confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, potentially making the court more conservative on the issue for decades to come.

In the meantime, some of them are cautioning their allies not to go too far.

Duran said the proposed 15-week ban in Mississippi, which now goes to the state Senate, caught her by surprise. She noted that prior state laws banning abortion after 12 weeks or once a heartbeat was detected have been found unconstitutional.

In South Carolina this past week, state senators tabled a bill that would have banned most abortions to give lawmakers more time to study the consequences. Also last week, a legislative committee in Tennessee amended a bill to remove language that would have outlawed abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detectable, which is usually around six weeks. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Micah Van Huss, said he would be back.

“I will not stop fighting for the lives of babies until abortion is abolished in this state,” he said.
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Israeli Soldiers Kill Palestinian Teen in West Bank

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Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager during an arrest raid in the village of Burqin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said Saturday.

A Reuters witness said about 200 Palestinians were throwing stones at Israeli military vehicles when a gunshot was heard, adding that a wounded person was then carried to a car.

Israel’s military said its forces had been searching in Burqin for suspects involved in the fatal drive-by shooting of an Israeli rabbi from a nearby settlement Jan. 9.

A military spokeswoman said rioting had broken out while troops were apprehending several suspects connected with that shooting and troops responded with non-fatal “riot dispersal means” against Palestinians throwing rocks and firebombs and then with live gunfire at the main instigators.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the teenager killed Saturday was 19 years old. The hospital in Jenin where he was taken said he had been shot in the head.

The Israeli military spokeswoman said he had climbed onto a military vehicle and had opened its door before he was shot.

Israeli forces in the adjacent city of Jenin last month shot and killed a Palestinian gunman whom they had also suspected of involvement in the rabbi’s shooting.

Tensions in the region have risen since U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December. Since then at least 20 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed.

Trump’s reversal of decades of U.S. policy enraged Palestinians, who want to create an independent state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israel captured those territories in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally. It says the entire city is its eternal, indivisible capital. It pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014. A bid by Trump’s administration to restart negotiations has shown no real signs of progress.
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Democrat Calls Nunes Memo ‘Flawed’; Trump Says It ‘Vindicates’ Him

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A controversial memo alleging FBI investigators abused their powers in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is “embarrassingly flawed,” the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said Saturday.

The memo released by the House Intelligence Committee “is a disgrace,” Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler said in a response to the document that has obsessed the U.S. political world this week. “House Republicans should be ashamed.”

Nadler’s six-page memo, addressed to his Democratic colleagues and obtained by television news networks, said the document — known as “the Nunes memo,” produced by House Republican Devin Nunes, chairman of the Intelligence Committee — “is deliberately misleading and deeply wrong on the law.”

The memo, released to the public Friday, alleges that the FBI overstepped its authority in obtaining a surveillance warrant for an aide to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The Nunes memo says the FBI relied heavily on a dossier of information assembled by Christopher Steele, a Russia expert and former British spy, for the campaign of Trump rival Hillary Clinton, via the law firm Perkins Cole and the research firm Fusion GPS.

The release of the memo intensified the battle between Trump and his Republican allies in Congress on one side and Democrats and top FBI officials on the other about whether the probe into Russian interference in the presidential election was affected by political bias on the part of investigators.

In his rebuttal, Nadler said the Republicans failed to show that the FBI relied substantially or solely on the dossier in question. Further, he said, “the Nunes memo does not provide a single shred of evidence that any aspect of the Steele dossier is false or inaccurate in any way.”

New Trump tweets

Joining the furor Saturday evening, President Trump, who is spending the weekend at his Florida golf resort, tweeted quotes of an editorial that appeared a day earlier in the Wall Street Journal. It said, in part, “The four page memo released Friday reports the disturbing fact [misquote in tweet; WSJ said “reports disturbing facts”] about how the FBI and FISA [in WSJ, “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court” was spelled out] appear to have been used to influence the 2016 election and its aftermath.”

Trump did not quote a later paragraph in the editorial, in which the Wall Street Journal called for the release of the Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo.

“Democrats are howling that the memo, produced by Republican staff, is misleading and leaves out essential details,” the Journal said. “By all means let’s see that, too. President Trump should declassify it promptly.” The editorial also called for release of a referral for criminal investigation of the dossier’s author.

Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that the disputed Republican memo “totally vindicates” him, despite a contrary view by most Democrats.

“This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe,” the president tweeted Saturday morning. “But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their [sic] was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!”

Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted back at the president, saying, “Quite the opposite, Mr. President. The most important fact disclosed in this otherwise shoddy memo was that FBI investigation began July 2016 with your advisor, Papadopoulos, who was secretly discussing stolen Clinton emails with the Russians.”

A significant part of the document focuses on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants that permitted FBI surveillance of former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, a businessman with interests in Russia.

There had been concerns about Page’s alleged contacts with Russian intelligence agents.

The memo asserts that the dossier was an “essential part” of the FISA application on Page.

​FBI, DOJ response

After the memo’s release, the FBI on Friday re-issued its statement from earlier this week, saying the agency “takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals.”

The FBI noted it was given “limited opportunity” to review the document before lawmakers voted to release it.

“As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the agency said.

Rep. Nunes issued a statement Friday expressing hope that the actions of Intelligence Committee Republicans would “shine a light” on what he called “this alarming series of events.”

“The committee has discovered serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes,” Nunes said. “Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies exist to defend the American people, not to be exploited to target one group on behalf of another.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions weighed in on the memo’s release Friday, saying, he has “great confidence in the men and women of this Department (of Justice). But no department is perfect.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray told agency employees Friday that he stood with them after the release of the memo.

“I stand by our shared determination to do our work independently and by the book,” Wray said in a statement to 35,000 FBI staff members.
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Iranian Leaders Speak of Threat of Social Media 

Posted on by SeeEA

Having survived popular protests across major cities in Iran, Iranian leaders are now turning to the tools that helped protesters organize and coordinate large-scale demonstrations against the government, which continued for more than a week before the government suppressed them.

A senior Iranian official this week urged the country’s cyberspace authorities to remain vigilant and prevent another potential wave of protests.

On the sidelines of a technical summit in the capital Tehran, where high-ranking officials gathered to discuss the country’s technological challenges, General Gholamreza Jalali expressed concerns over the possibility of yet another round of popular protests aided by social media and the internet.

Jalali is head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization.

In December 2017, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest, among other things, the country’s economic policies and the government’s inability to provide economic opportunities for its citizens. Protesters were also demanding more civil liberties.

The country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met with cyberspace experts to brainstorm ideas to address what they saw as the challenges and threats that the internet and social media platforms pose to the leadership of the Islamic Republic.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the powerful Guardians Council, told Tasnim news agency, a hard-line media outlet with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), that Khamenei ordered the meeting to take place.

​‘It will bite again’

Jannati, who did not give details of the meeting, said the government must have full control over the internet.

“I’m not saying it [internet] has to be fully blocked,” Jannati reportedly said. “That’s impossible. But we have to reduce [control] it.”

Iranian leaders and their supporters voiced what it sees as the threats posed by people’s access to the internet.

“Cyberspace as a platform for foreigners is a mad dog,” Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a hard-line cleric and interim sermon to Tehran’s Friday prayer said last month.

“If left alone, it will bite again,” Khatami added.

Some analysts believe the recent rhetoric against the internet could mean more restrictions.

“The recent quotes we hear these days implies that authorities are preparing grounds for a new round of social media ban in Iran,” a Tehran-based media analyst, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, said.

“It seems that the Iranian supreme leader wants more control over social media platforms, and no one dares to oppose him on that subject,” the analyst added.

Government blocking

Iranian authorities regularly block news websites and social media platforms in addition to blocking foreign television and radio broadcasts to the country.

In an effort to control the flow of communication, the government steers local IP addresses to a domestic internet dubbed National Data Network, where it monitors people’s communication exchanges.

To avoid government surveillance, some users have found ways to bypass blocks put in place by authorities.

Now government officials are signaling they might target encrypted messaging platforms.

“Hard-liners are targeting social media that can be used as an untraceable means of communication,” Mohammad Ali Khorassani, a U.K.-based social media analyst, said.

“These new forms of media are harder to track down and easier to convey encrypted mass messages and (are) very suitable for promoting campaigns,” Khorassani added.

In some cases, when a government cannot monitor some communication platforms, the other solution is complete blockage.

As the protests gained momentum last December, the government blocked Telegram and Instagram in parts of the country. The two social media applications are widely used across the country.

The block stayed in place for several days until the protests waned. President Hassan Rouhani, who to some extent owes his victory of last year’s presidential election to these social media platforms, ordered the restoration of the services.

​Telegram: A nightmare

For those in charge of monitoring the internet in Iran, the encrypted Telegram application is a constant headache and a nightmare.

“It’s not acceptable for people to use a monopolized social media,” Mahmoud Vaezi, Rouhani’s chief of staff, told reporters January 17, referring to only Telegram.

According to Pavel Durov, the Russian CEO and co-founder of Telegram, the messaging application has an estimated 40 million active users in Iran. Iranian officials, however say the popular social messaging tool has 30 million users, which is still a considerable number of the country’s nearly 80 million population.

“The servers of any social media website or application that has more than 30 million Iranian members should not be outside the country,” Jalali, the head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, said in 2017.

“This is a national security necessity and not a political one,” Jalali claimed.

Telegram’s imminent blockage

Iranian authorities reportedly requested Durov to transfer its servers to Iran. When the company declined, prosecutors in Tehran filed a case against the company, alleging that the application provided terror groups like the Islamic State a platform for communication.

U.K.-based social media analyst Mohammad Ali Khorassani said it is just a matter of time before the government blocks Telegram.

The “Telegram app, which is the most used app among Iranians, is the No. 1 target of this new blockage,” Khorassani said.

The government is also pushing alternative applications, developed by Iranians, in an effort to discourage people from using the encrypted Telegram.

Last month, the official account of Iran’s Supreme Leader on Telegram announced the launch of an account for iGap and Soroush, which are applications similar to Telegram in function but that are controlled by the government.

In its latest report, the London-based Small Media Foundation, which monitors violations of the free flow of information, interpreted the move as a possible sign of a coming ban on Telegram in Iran.
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Ancient Egyptian Tomb Opens Window on 5th Dynasty

Posted on by SeeAF

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 4,400-year-old tomb near the country’s famed pyramids at the Giza plateau just outside Cairo, the Antiquities Ministry said Saturday, the latest discovery that authorities hope will help revive the country’s staggering tourism sector.

The tomb was found in a wider area of Giza’s western necropolis, which is known to be home to tombs from the Old Kingdom.

It likely belonged to a woman known as Hetpet, who archaeologists believe was close to ancient Egyptian royals of the 5th Dynasty.

 

The tomb, unveiled to the media Saturday, is made of mud brick and includes wall paintings in good condition depicting Hetpet observing different hunting and fishing scenes.

Other scenes also depict a monkey — in pharaonic times, monkeys were commonly kept as domestic animals — picking fruit. Similar scenes have been found in other tombs belonging to the later 12th dynasty, according to the ministry’s statement. Another scene shows a monkey dancing before an orchestra.

 

WAYCH: Old Kingdom Tomb Discovered Near Giza Pyramids

More discoveries likely

According to the ministry, the archaeological mission behind the discovery started excavation work last October. Archaeologists have been making discoveries near the site since the 19th century, and Mostafa al-Waziri, who led the mission, believes there is still more to be found.

“This is a very promising area. We expect to find more,” Al-Waziri told reporters at the site. “We have removed between 250-300 cubic meters of layers of earth to find the tomb.”

“What we see above the earth’s surface in Egypt doesn’t exceed 40 percent of what the core holds,” he added.

Al-Waziri believes Hetpet had another tomb in Giza’s western necropolis and said that excavation work is underway to find that one, too.

No mummy yet

Hetpet is a previously known figure in Egyptian antiquity, though her mummy has not been discovered yet. Fragments of artifacts belonging to Hetpet were found in the same area in 1909, and were moved to a museum in Berlin at the time, Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani said Saturday at the site.

Despite all the discoveries from ancient Egypt, experts say they hope to find many more treasures buried under the vast desert, thanks in part to modern technology.

​Grand Egyptian

The area of the latest discovery is close to a new museum under construction that will house some of Egypt’s most unique and precious artifacts, including many belonging to the famed boy King Tutankhamun.

The first phase of Grand Egyptian museum is expected to open later this year while the grand opening is planned for 2022.

In January, Egypt placed the ancient statue of one of its most famous pharaohs, Ramses II, at the museum’s atrium, which will include 43 massive statues.

​Discoveries await visitors

Throughout 2017, the Antiquities Ministry made a string of discoveries across Egypt, including some in the southern city Luxor known for its spectacular temples and tombs spanning different dynasties of ancient Egyptian history.

Egypt hopes the inauguration of the new museum, along with the recent discoveries, will draw back visitors to the country where tourism has been hit hard by extremist attacks and political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak and the authorities’ struggles to rein in an insurgency by Islamic militants.

The government has tightened security around archaeological and touristic sites and spent millions of dollars to upgrade airport security especially following the 2015 downing of a Russian airliner over the restive Sinai Peninsula by the Islamic State group, killing 224 people on board.

The bombing dealt Egypt’s vital tourism sector a hard blow after Russia suspended flights to and from Egypt.

In December, Cairo and Moscow signed a security protocol and announced plans to resume Russian flights to the Egyptian capital, to start this month.
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Anti-US-Base Mayor Seeks Re-election in Okinawa’s Nago City

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A mayor opposed to a U.S. Marines base on Okinawa seeks re-election in a poll on Sunday, raising the prospect that the facility will remain an irritant in

Japan-U.S. relations.

Japan’s central government and Okinawa authorities have long bickered over a plan, first agreed upon between Tokyo and Washington in 1996, to relocate the U.S. Marines’ Futenma air base from an urban area in central Okinawa to the less populated Henoko district of the northern city of Nago.

Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine and Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga are among the opponents of the move, seeking to have Futenma’s functions moved off Okinawa entirely. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government wants to forge ahead with the relocation.

Many Okinawa residents associate the U.S. military presence with crime, pollution and accidents, and resentment has been rekindled by a spate of incidents involving U.S. military aircraft. In December, a window fell from a U.S. helicopter onto a school sports field, fanning safety concerns.

Inamine, who is seeking a third four-year term with opposition support, was leading challenger Taketoyo Toguchi, backed by Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, a Yomiuri newspaper survey published on January 30 showed.

A win for Toguchi would make it easier for Abe’s government to carry through the relocation. A former local assembly member, Toguchi has pledged to improve the city’s economy.

Work is underway for construction of a Futenma replacement facility, but some aspects require approval from the Nago mayor, so the re-election of Inamine could bring delays.

Polls close at 8 p.m. (1100 GMT) and media exit polls are expected afterward. Official results may not be available until early Monday.
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Suspected IS Fighters Killed in Libya Firefight

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Libyan forces killed three suspected Islamic State fighters near an oilfield in the southeast of the country, a local official said Saturday.

Two soldiers were also killed and five wounded during clashes over two days, one of which took place near the Dhahra oilfield Saturday, said Umar al-Faqeh, head of the Maradah administration to which the area belongs. There had been fighting in another area Friday, he added.

The Dhahra field is operated by Waha, a joint venture between Libya’s state National Oil Company and U.S. firms Hess, Marathon and ConocoPhillips.

The oil protection force guarding the Waha operations is allied to Libya’s eastern government. The U.N.-backed administration is in the capital, Tripoli, in western Libya.

Libya has been mired in conflict since the toppling of long-time ruler Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

In December, armed men blew up a Waha pipeline pumping crude to Es Sider port, temporarily cutting Libyan output by around 100,000 barrels per day. Officials blamed terrorists, without giving details.

The area has poor security, and sources say it has been populated by Islamic State fighters since they lost control of their stronghold in Libya, the central city of Sirte, in 2016.

 
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Turkey Denies Border Guards Shot at Fleeing Syrians

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Turkish guards at the border with Syria are indiscriminately shooting at and summarily returning asylum seekers attempting to cross into Turkey, Human Rights Watch said.

A senior Turkish government official denied the report Saturday, repeating that Turkey had taken in 3.5 million war refugees since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Syrians were now fleeing heightened violence in the northwestern province of Idlib to seek refuge near Turkey’s border, which remains closed to all but critical medical cases.

Syrian armed forces have thrust deeper into the mainly rebel-held province in recent months, and Turkey last month launched military action in the nearby Afrin region, targeting Kurdish YPG militia fighters.

“Syrians fleeing to the Turkish border seeking safety and asylum are being forced back with bullets and abuse,” Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, when asked about the HRW statement, told reporters that Turkish soldiers were there to protect these people and that Ankara has had an “open-door policy” since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.

A senior government official later told Reuters: “There has been absolutely no case of civilians being fired upon at the border.”

HRW cited U.N. figures saying 247,000 Syrians were displaced to the border area between December 15 and January 15.

“As fighting in Idlib and Afrin displaces thousands more, the number of Syrians trapped along the border willing to risk their lives to reach Turkey is only likely to increase,” Fakih said.

In the latest fighting in Afrin, five Turkish soldiers were killed Saturday when their tank was hit in an attack carried out by YPG fighters, Turkey’s armed forces said.

Under fire

Of 16 Syrian refugees HRW spoke to, 13 alleged that Turkish border guards had shot toward them or other fleeing asylum seekers as they tried to cross while still in Syria, killing 10 people, including one child, and injuring several more.

Turkey has taken in more Syrian refugees than any other country, granting many temporary protection status and providing them with basic services, including medical care and education.

“However, Turkey’s generous hosting of large numbers of Syrians does not absolve it of its responsibility to help those seeking protection at its borders,” the HRW statement added.

It said Erdogan’s government should issue standard instructions to border guards at all crossing points that lethal force must not be used against asylum seekers and that no asylum seeker is to be mistreated.
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Police: Child Burned in Voodoo Ritual in Massachusetts, 2 Women Charged 

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Two sisters in Massachusetts were charged after they allegedly performed a voodoo ritual on a 5-year-old girl, burning and permanently disfiguring her, Massachusetts police said.

A Haitian hairstylist said she believed her two children — the 5-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy — were misbehaving “due to evil spirits,” and sought the help of sisters Peggy LaBossiere, 51, and Rachel Hilaire, 40, to rid the children of the demon.

The sisters, of East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, pleaded not guilty on January 29 to charges including mayhem and assault. They told police they had performed “cleansing baths” in the past, according to The Associated Press. 

The boy told police his sister was tied down as the women blew fire over her face. He said they also cut the 5-year-old on the arm and collarbone, drawing blood. He said the women also threatened to cut his head off with a machete.

The girl suffered third-degree burns on her face.

The women denied harming or threatening the children. They next appear in court Wednesday.

The children’s mother, who has not been charged, is receiving mental health treatment, according to AP.

Voodoo is a religion that evolved in the 17th century when colonists brought slaves to Haiti from West Africa.
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Russian Oligarchs in Britain Will Be Asked to Explain Wealth

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Russian oligarchs suspected of corruption will be forced to explain their wealth in Britain, The Times newspaper reported on February 3, quoting the security minister.
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Pressure Mounts on Poland to Back Away From Holocaust Bill

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Poland is seeing a resurgence of anti-Semitism over pending legislation that would impose jail terms for suggestions that the nation was complicit in the

Holocaust, local minority groups warned, as pressure mounts on the president to veto the bill.

Parliament passed the measure Thursday, drawing outrage from Israel, U.S. criticism and condemnation from a number of international organizations. President Andrzej Duda has 21 days to decide whether to sign it into law.

The bill would impose prison sentences of up to three years for mentioning the term “Polish death camps” and for suggesting “publicly and against the facts” complicity on the part of the Polish nation or state in Nazi Germany’s crimes.

More than 3 million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, accounting for about half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust. Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by the Germans on Polish soil, including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians.

In a rare show of unity, Polish minority and ethnic groups, including Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian, urged Duda and other authorities to counteract all forms of xenophobia, intolerance and anti-Semitism, although they did not directly call on the president to veto the bill.

“Our particular concern and objection is caused by the numerous and loud manifestations of anti-Semitism that we have been witnessing this week after the [parliament] passed [the Holocaust bill],” the groups said in a statement.

Painful debate

Poland, which has gone through a painful public debate in recent years after the publication of research showing some Poles participated in the Nazi atrocities, has long sought to discourage use of the term “Polish camps” to refer to Nazi camps on its territory, arguing that the phrase implies complicity.

On Saturday, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the use of the phrase “Polish death camps” was wrong.

“There is not the slightest doubt as to who was responsible for the extermination camps, operated them and murdered millions of European Jews there: namely Germans,” Gabriel said in a statement.

Israeli officials said the legislation criminalizes basic historical facts. The country’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Israel “adamantly opposes” the bill’s approval as a whole.

The Israeli Embassy in Warsaw said late Friday that Israel did not oppose Poland’s fight to assure that the phrase “Polish death camps” is never used.

“We would like to use this opportunity to repeat that Israel stands with Poland in using the proper term for the death camps — German Nazi camps,” the embassy said in its statement.

The embassy also said that it had received “a wave of anti-Semitic statements” in the past week.

Poland is one of the most ethnically and religiously homogenous countries in Europe, but before World War II, Jews made up 10 percent of the population and the country also had large Ukrainian, German, Belarussian and other minorities.

Poland’s ruling party, the socially conservative PiS, has reignited debate on the Holocaust as part of a campaign to fuel patriotism since sweeping into power in 2015.

The party says the bill is needed to protect Poland’s reputation and ensure historians recognize that Poles as well as Jews were victims of the Nazis.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of the PiS and the country’s de facto leader, told public radio Jedynka on Saturday that Poland rejected “anti-Semitism very radically.”

“But we are also a sovereign state and we have a duty to start, because this is only the beginning, the fight against … this great defamatory campaign against Poland, namely, insulting Poland, blaming us for someone else’s actions.”

Free speech

Critics of the bill have raised concerns it will curb free speech and could be used against Holocaust survivors or historians.

A U.S. congressional task force on combating anti-Semitism and a number of Jewish groups urged Duda to veto the bill.

The International Auschwitz Council, an advisory body to the office of the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Friday that the bill’s imprecision raised “legitimate concerns about restricting freedom in discovering the truth about the Holocaust.”

Duda has not said whether he will sign the bill, but his spokesman told the Polish state radio Trojka: “The president believes that Poland, as any other country, has the right to defend its good name … has the right to defend the truth.”

Kaczynski said that Duda should sign the law.

“We must talk to our allies in a way that would allow them to understand that we have no intention of renouncing our dignity,” he said.
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Mogadishu College Graduate Proves His ‘Disability Is Not an Inability’ 

Posted on by SeeAF

Mogadishu has suffered more than two decades of war, and many of its young people were born and raised alongside violence and bloodshed.

Children with disabilities, however, face added risks of abandonment, neglect and lack of equal access to basic human necessities.

But Ismail Rage, 22, did not let his disability keep him from his goal of graduating from Simad University in Mogadishu. He received a bachelor’s degree in banking and financing on Wednesday.

As a child, Rage developed polio, which paralyzed his legs.

“Being a person with disability who was born and raised in a war zone, my dream was to attain such an achievement over the years,” Rage told VOA’s Somali service, adding that amid “financial and security challenges in Somalia, I have finally and fortunately” realized his dream.

Living in Somalia has many challenges for a disabled person, including being excluded from mainstream society. Many see only the limits of disabled people, not their opportunities.

Rage’s parents were among a few who dared to face the social stigma by sending their disabled children to the only available private schools.

“When I was just 3 years old, I was diagnosed with polio. My parents had been perplexed about what to do with both my legs paralyzed. At the age of 6, they sent me to Quranic school and then to private school within a few years,” Rage said.

Crawled to safety

He survived the bullets and bombs that killed many other Somalis in the streets of Mogadishu. But, at times, he was forced to crawl to achieve his goal.

“I was always facing risks, crawling through the streets, and riding on public transports,” Rage said. “When people hear explosions or gunfire they run, but I would crawl to my nearest cover.”

He uses a wheelchair, but the streets of Mogadishu are too sandy to maneuver by himself, he said, adding that he would move along on his hands and knees to get to school.

Because of its rarity, Rage’s inspirational story dominated the headlines of Somali media outlets this week and has been widely circulated through social media.

Rage has received compliments from President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, the community, other government officials and even other people with disabilities, who find him inspiring.

He also received interest from Somalia’s finance minister, Abdirahman Duale Beileh — a potential employer for finance graduates.

Rage said “disability is not inability,” and he is preparing for graduate school.

“I was contacted by the former Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who congratulated me and promised that he will financially sponsor my graduate degree,” Rage said.
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UN Urges Resumption of Independent TV Transmissions in Kenya

Posted on by SeeAF

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights criticizes the continued suspension of three independent television stations in Kenya, despite a court ruling that the government ban be lifted.

Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville says the U.N. office is concerned by the Kenyan government’s refusal to heed the Kenyan High Court’s instruction to allow the TV stations to resume transmission.  He says the government should respect and implement the judicial decision.

“We are also concerned at its attempts to interfere with the rights to freedom of expression and association by reportedly warning that participation in Mr. [Raila] Odinga’s ceremony would lead to revocation of licenses.  Media organizations that disregarded this advice were shut down,” Colville said.

Earlier this week, Kenya’s main opposition leader, Raila Odinga, held a controversial ceremony in which he declared himself the “peoples’ president.”  The government shut down the TV stations to prevent live coverage of the event.

After a disputed election marred by irregularities, Uhuru Kenyatta, was sworn in for a second term as president in November.   Odinga, who refuses to accept the election results, organized the opposition mock inauguration ceremony in defiance of the government, which called it treasonous.

Colville told VOA he does not believe the shutdown of the TV stations prevented the violent rioting that had been predicted if Odinga’s ceremony went ahead.  He said it is dangerous to make a connection between the two events.  

“What is true and I think very good was that the ceremony, which was held by Odinga’s party … passed off peacefully.  And, thousands of people attended it despite the government’s warnings that they should not.  But, the police seemed to take great care to avoid a major confrontation during that situation,” Colville said.

While Colville called this laudable, he said the continued suspension of the television stations is not and should be ended.

 
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Americans Gear Up for Football ‘Super Bowl’

Posted on by SeeUS

Super Bowl LII is almost here. In the week leading up to the biggest sporting event in the United States, the National Football League kicked-off the Super Bowl Experience at the Minnesota Convention Center.

It’s a family-friendly, interactive theme park where fans of all ages can run some of the same football drills as the pros. They kick, pass, catch and run … albeit badly when compared to the players who buckle their chinstraps and put the NFL’s multibillion-dollar-a-year product on the field every week of the season.

This year’s Super Bowl host city is Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its home team – the Vikings – came within one win of playing in the big game.

That’s still a fresh wound for Vikings fans like Drake Jackson.

“My heart aches a little bit once I see Patriots and Eagles (instead of Patriots and Vikings), but you know, it is what it is … maybe next season.”

Thirty-two teams started the season in September, but now only the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots remain. The teams take the field at U.S. Bank Stadium to decide the winner of this year’s Vince Lombardi Trophy; the iconic prize awarded to the winner of the NFL’s championship game.

Kickoff is scheduled for 2330 UTC Sunday
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Water Crisis Brings Out Cape Town Rich-Poor Divide

Posted on by SeeAF

“Day Zero” is approaching as South Africa’s showcase city of Cape Town prepares to turn off most water taps amid the worst drought in a century. Tensions among the 4 million residents are highlighting a class divide.

 

The top international tourist destination has both sprawling informal settlements and high-income oceanside neighborhoods. Some say poorer residents are unfairly blamed as concerns rise over wasting precious water. The military is prepared to help secure water collection points if “Day Zero” occurs.

 

The Associated Press is exploring how residents are coping as water restrictions tighten in an attempt to avoid the possible shut-off in April, and it spoke with researchers about where the water usage problems lie.

Leafy suburbs

 

Kirsty Carden with the Future Water Institute at the University of Cape Town pointed to the city’s leafy suburbs. 

“It has been in the areas where people have gardens, they have swimming pools and they are much more profligate in the way that they use water, because they’re used to the water just being, coming out of the taps,” she said.

 

About a quarter of Cape Town’s population lives in the informal settlements, where they get water from communal taps instead of individual taps at home, Carden said. 

“And there are always pictures of running taps and broken fixtures and ‘Look at the leakage’ and all the rest. But the reality is that those 1 million people out of a population of 4 (million) only use 4.5 percent of the water.”

​Water restrictions, fines

 

In one of the crowded settlements of corrugated-metal homes, resident Vuyo Kazi washed her laundry outside as others poured used water into the street. 

 

“Before, I was using two kettles of water to wash myself,” she said. “So now I use one kettle of water.”

 

Under new water restrictions that began Thursday, residents are asked to use no more than 50 liters (13.2 gallons) of water daily, down from the previous limit of 87 liters (23 gallons). The use of city drinking water to wash vehicles, hose down paved areas, fill up private swimming pools and water gardens is illegal. Residents using too much water will be fined.

 

Across the city, in the seaside town of Scarborough, resident Kelson da Cruz demonstrated the new normal of water rationing, pointing out the bucket beside his shower.

 

“We are restricted with an amount of the water that we can use per day,” he said. “So we collect that water, and that water you can use to flush the toilet.” Another jar of water is used for tooth-brushing and face-washing.

​Climate change, more people

 

Some 70 percent of water used in Cape Town is consumed in homes, authorities say. Experts say causes of the city’s water shortages include climate change and huge population growth.

 

“We always open the tap, the water is there, easy,” da Cruz said. “I was lucky to travel to some dry countries where water has always been a big issue. So when we moved to South Africa that has always been on the back of our mind. 

 

“And I think South Africa is for the first time is really catching up with the rest of the world. They have to change their habits. You can’t just take for granted something so precious.”
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Greek Cypriots Vote in Runoff, in Hopes of Peace Deal

Posted on by SeeEU

Greek Cypriots are gearing up for a presidential runoff Sunday, barely seven months after the latest failure to reunify the eastern Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus.

President Nicos Anastasiades is looking to reprise his triumph over left-leaning Stavros Malas in 2013 when the two men faced each other. Earlier polls had shown Anastasiades beating Malas convincingly in Sunday’s runoff, but Malas’ strong showing in last weekend’s first round of voting might make it a closer race.

Voters are skeptical about whether anyone can lead them out of the labyrinth of the decades-old division with Turkish Cypriots.

Cyprus was divided into a Greek-speaking south and a Turkish-speaking north in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence and keeps more than 35,000 troops in the north.

Anastasiades, 71, who says it will be his last term in office if re-elected, is counting on his track record of turning the economy around after a 2013 financial crisis that saw unemployment soar and salaries slashed. He has also been trumpeting his role in steering peace talks with breakaway Turkish Cypriots further than anyone else since the 1974 split.

By contrast, the 50-year-old Malas is hoping his relative youth will strike a chord with the 550,000 eligible voters, many of whom are disillusioned by the acrimonious breakdown of the latest round of peace talks and years of economic uncertainty that’s shaken the confidence of the middle class.

Anastasiades and Malas secured 35.5 and 35.2 percent of the vote, respectively, in the first round, setting up potentially a tighter than anticipated final vote.
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Fans and Families Live the Super Bowl Experience

Posted on by SeeUS

After a season that started in early September, the NFL’s final game is just around the corner. Minneapolis, Minnesota, is hosting the single biggest event in American sports, despite local disappointment that the home team came one win short of a Super Bowl appearance. But that didn’t stop fans from braving brutally cold weather to check out the NFL’s Super Bowl Experience. Arash Arabasadi reports from Minneapolis.
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Palestinian-American Brings #MeToo Campaign to West Bank

Posted on by SeeEA

A young Palestinian-American is the driving force behind a nascent #MeToo movement in this patriarchal corner of the world, selling T-shirts, hoodies and denim jackets with the slogan “Not Your Habibti (darling)” as a retort for catcalls and writing down women’s complaints from her perch in a West Bank square.

Yasmeen Mjalli wants to encourage Palestinian society to confront sexual harassment, a largely taboo subject.

“What I am doing is to start a conversation that people are really afraid to have,” said Mjalli as she put her merchandise on hangers in a clothing store.

The 21-year-old has faced backlash from conservatives and from some activists who say fighting Israel’s occupation is the priority for Palestinians.

Her parents, who grew up in a Palestinian farming town, immigrated to the United States and returned to the West Bank five years ago, weren’t pleased, either.

“To be able to have peace with them, I have to check my feminism at the door, which is very difficult because that’s really who I am,” said Mjalli, who moved to the West Bank last year, after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in art history.

​Starting a taboo conversation

Mjalli and other activists say that starting a conversation about sexual harassment doesn’t mean copying the #MeToo movement in the United States, where victims are speaking out in growing numbers.

Cultural differences require a different approach.

Women across the Arab world have made strides toward equality, outnumbering men in many universities and joining the work force in growing numbers. Yet they struggle to break free from the constraints of patriarchy.

Traditional Arab societies assign rigid gender roles, with men as guardians of their female relatives’ “honor,” effectively a ban on male-female friendships or sex outside marriage. Women violating those rules risk being ostracized or — in extreme cases — being killed by male relatives, who count on leniency from the courts.

Trouble spots everywhere

Rules are looser among urban elites. But even in Ramallah, the most liberal West Bank town with many Western-educated Palestinians and foreigners, women watch their step.

Women risk being blamed if they complain, said Wafa Abdelrahman, who runs a closed Facebook group for female journalists. 

“The blame will be, ‘for sure, you did something wrong or you gave the wrong signal, the way you dress, the way you talk,’” she said.

University student Nadine Moussa, 22, said women know the trouble spots.

“I never ever walked in the city center of Ramallah without being harassed verbally, but I don’t face that in the neighborhoods,” she said, adding that her co-ed campus is relatively safe.

Legal protection lacking

Palestinian police receive few complaints about street harassment, said spokesman Loay Irzeqat. He believes some women fear unintended consequences, such as male relatives attacking accused harassers.

Police mostly deal with online harassment, with about one-third of some 2,000 electronic crimes cases in 2017 revolving around men blackmailing women for sexual or financial gain, he said. Typically, extortionists threaten to publish photos deemed compromising, such as showing a traditional woman without her headscarf.

Women lack legal protection, despite improvements such as the establishment of a police sex crimes unit, said Amal Kreishe, founder of the Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development to which Mjalli donates some of her proceeds.

Reforms of the penal code have been held up by the collapse of Palestinian parliament as a result of a decade-old split between President Mahmoud Abbas’ West Bank autonomy government and the militant Hamas group in Gaza. Abbas has ignored appeals to change the code by decree in the meantime.

“All the talk about women’s equality and rights is lip service,” Kreishe said.

Still, Kreishe has witnessed gradual changes. More women seek counseling from her group, which has referred about 200 complaints to police over the past two years, compared to a few dozen in previous years.

Harassment varies

Across the Arab world, the prevalence of street harassment varies.

In Egypt, it remains widespread despite pushback from civil society and a 2014 law threatening up to five years in prison. Cairo has been described by some as the world’s most dangerous mega city for women.

In the conservative Gulf Arab region, street harassment is relatively uncommon in smaller countries where religious and tribal codes restrict interactions between unmarried men and women.

In Saudi Arabia, it has become an issue of debate, as women prepare to drive for the first time this June, following the lifting of a government ban. In recent years, several videos went viral showing Saudi women in long black robes being heckled by men. Saudi King Salman has approved legislation criminalizing sexual harassment.

​’Typewriter events’

In the West Bank, Mjalli is pushing boundaries with what she calls “typewriter events.”

On a recent day, she sat behind a table in Ramallah’s Clock Square, taking notes on a typewriter — chosen over a laptop as an attention-getter — as women sitting across from her shared stories about harassment. The event was also meant to generate support for passing laws protecting women, she said.

Her idea of designing clothes with a feminist message goes back to college.

At the time, she decorated her denim jacket with “Not your Habibti,” a take on the popular “Not Your Baby” slogan that reflected her Arab roots. Mjalli posted a photo of the jacket online last year for International Women’s Day, stirring interest from potential buyers.

For a few months, she bought, transformed and sold second-hand jackets. In August, she launched her business, Baby-Fist, with workshops in Gaza and the West Bank making T-shirts, hoodies and jackets.

Mjalli estimates she has sold close to 500 pieces, with about 70 percent of her sales in the diaspora.

Skeptics expect limited impact on Palestinian society.

Nader Said, a Palestinian pollster, said public discourse is crowded with issues seen as more pressing, mainly Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and other lands Palestinians seek for a future state. Respondents listing top concerns in a survey ranked women’s rights near the end, he said.

Abdelrahman, the activist, cheered on Mjalli.

“I am open to all things that will open up this dark closet that we prefer to hide in, pretending that everything is alright,” she said. “Let’s open it and see what comes out of it.”
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Former Utah Monument Lands Open to Claims, but No Land Rush in Sight

Posted on by SeeUS

The window opened Friday for oil, gas, uranium and coal companies to make requests or stake claims to lands that were cut from two sprawling Utah national monuments by President Trump in December, but there doesn’t appear to be a rush to seize the opportunities.

For anyone interested in the uranium on the lands stripped from the Bears Ears National Monument, all they need to do is stake a few corner posts in the ground, pay a $212 initial fee and send paperwork to the federal government under a law first created in 1872 that harkens back to the days of the Wild West.

They can then keep rights to the hard minerals, including gold and silver, as long as they pay an annual fee of $155.

It was unclear if anyone was doing that Friday.

​Inquiries, but no claims yet

The Bureau of Land Management declined repeated requests for information about how they’re handling the lands and how many requests and claims came in.

The agency says it must comply with a complex web of other laws and management plans.

Steve Bloch, legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said he was told by the BLM Friday afternoon that inquiries were made but no claims sent in.

He said other conservation groups that have sued to block the downsized monument boundaries are watching closely to ensure no lands are disturbed in the short-term, hoping a judge will side with them and return the monuments to the original boundaries.

Two of the largest uranium companies in the U.S., Ur-Energy Inc. and Energy Fuels Resources Inc., said they have no plans to mine there. The price of uranium, which has fallen to about $22 per pound, down from more than $100 in the mid-2000s, would “discourage any investment in new claims,” said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association.

Colorado-based Energy Fuels asked for a reduction of Bears Ears last year in a public comment, but spokesman Curtis Moore said in a statement that the company has higher priorities elsewhere. He noted the lands were open to claims for 150 years before President Barack Obama creating the national monument in 2016.

“There probably isn’t any land available for staking that would be of much interest to anyone,” Moore said.

Coal in Grand Staircase-Escalante

In Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, part of a major coal reserve that a company was preparing to mine before President Bill Clinton protected the lands in 1996, has been made available again but it appears unlikely any company will immediately jump at the chance this time.

Out-of-state demand for Utah’s coal had led to a drop in coal production to about 14 million tons in 2017, down from about 27 million tons in the mid-2000s, said Michael Vanden Berg, energy and mineral program manager at the Utah Geological Survey.

“If a new mine were to open, it would be competing with existing mines in Utah for limited demand,” Vanden Berg said.

Popovich called it “doubtful given market conditions and other factors” that companies interested in coal would put in a lease request.

Vanden Berg noted that a potential coal port in Oakland, California, could open up an Asian market and that technology could be developed to change market forces.

Oil and gas potential

There’s some potential for oil and gas at Grand Staircase, Vanden Berg said. But Kathleen Sgamma, president of an oil and gas industry group called Western Energy Alliance, said heavy oil shale in the area would require an intensive mining operation that doesn’t make sense in today’s market.

“There’s no fracking trucks at the border waiting to rush in,” Sgamma said.

President Trump downsized the Bears Ears National Monument by about 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly half. It earned him cheers from Republican leaders in Utah who lobbied him to undo protections by Democratic presidents that they considered overly broad.

Bears Ears, created nearly a year ago, will be reduced to 315 square miles (815.85 square kilometers). Grand Staircase-Escalante will be reduced from nearly 3,000 square miles (7,770 square kilometers) to 1,569 square miles (4,063.71 square kilometers).

Conservation groups called it the largest elimination of protected land in American history.
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Scientists Develop Blood Test to Detect Eight Types of Cancer

Posted on by SeeUS

Feb. 4 is World Cancer Day, an annual opportunity to raise awareness of cancer and encourage its prevention, detection and treatment. In the area of detection, Faith Lapidus reports that researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland, are developing a blood test that screens for eight different types of cancer.
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Britain Buys Into China’s ‘One Belt’ Initiative, but Washington Offers Warning

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Britain has made clear its desire to be part of China’s so-called ‘One Belt One Road Initiative’ — a cornerstone of President Xi Jinping’s vision to boost Chinese investment and influence across Asia, Europe and Africa. There are, however, concerns over the financial and humanitarian costs of the vast infrastructure projects being undertaken. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the United States has issued a blunt warning over what it sees as the dangers of being tied to China’s huge investment projects.
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Workers Benefiting from Tight Labor Market

Posted on by SeeUS

Another solid month for the U.S. economy as American companies added 200,000 new workers to their payrolls last month. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1 percent, but wages are rising. Although the number of unemployed Americans continues to fall, recruiting agencies say they’ve never been busier. Mil Arcega explains.
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Recording-Setting Spacewalk Ends With Antenna in Wrong Spot 

Posted on by SeeEU

A record-setting Russian spacewalk ended with a critical antenna in the wrong position Friday outside the International Space Station.

NASA’s Mission Control reported that the antenna was still working. Nevertheless, Russian space officials were convening a special team to see whether further action would be necessary. The antenna is used for communications with Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow.

The trouble arose toward the end of the more than 8 hour spacewalk — the longest ever by Russians and the fifth longest overall — after Commander Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov successfully replaced an electronics box to upgrade the antenna.

Antenna misplaced

The pair watched in dismay as the antenna got hung up on the Russian side of the complex and could not be extended properly. The antenna — a long boom with a 4-foot dish at the end — had been folded up before the repair work.

Misurkin and Shkaplerov pushed, as flight controllers tried repeatedly, via remote commanding, to rotate the antenna into the right position. Finally, someone shouted in Russian, “It’s moving. It’s in place.”

NASA Mission Control said from Houston that the antenna wound up in a position 180 degrees farther than anticipated.

The spacewalk dragged on so long — lasting 8 hours and 13 minutes — that Misurkin and Shkaplerov ended up surpassing the previous Russian record of 8 hours and 7 minutes, set in 2013. It was supposed to last 6 hours.

“Are you kidding us?” one of them asked when they heard about the record.

NASA still holds the world record, with a spacewalk just shy of nine hours back in 2001.

Original equipment

Misurkin and Shkaplerov also asked flight controllers whether the antenna was operating “or have we just wasted our time?” The response: It’s being evaluated.

It was the second spacewalk in as many weeks. On Jan. 23, two U.S. astronauts went out to give a new hand to the station’s big robotic arm. NASA had planned another spacewalk this week, but bumped it to mid-February because engineers needed extra time to get the mechanical hand working.

After removing the old, obsolete electronics box from the antenna — an original part, launched in 2000 — Misurkin shoved it away from the space station. The bundle tumbled harmlessly away, 250 miles above the North Atlantic.

The 60-pound box — measuring just a couple of feet, or less than a meter — was hurled in a direction that will not intersect with the space station, according to NASA officials.

Different approach

While the Russians routinely toss old equipment and used towels overboard during spacewalks, NASA prefers to secure no-longer-needed items or, if possible, bring them inside. Except for SpaceX’s cargo ships, empty supply capsules are filled with trash and set loose to burn up in the atmosphere. The discarded electronics box will re-enter and burn up, too; Mission Control said it did not know when that will occur. 

Misurkin will return to Earth at the end of this month with two NASA crewmates.

The space station is home to two Russians, three Americans and one Japanese.
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