March 2018 - BOORSEE

Tesla Says Vehicle in Deadly Crash Was on Autopilot

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

A vehicle in a fatal crash last week in California was operating on Autopilot, making it the latest accident to involve a self-driving vehicle, Tesla has confirmed.

The electric car maker said the driver, who was killed in the accident, did not have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the crash, despite several warnings from the vehicle. Tesla Inc. tells drivers that its Autopilot system, which can maintain speed, change lanes and self-park, requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel in order to take control of the vehicle to avoid accidents.

Tesla said its vehicle logs show the driver took no action to stop the Model X SUV from crashing into a concrete lane divider. Photographs of the SUV show that the front of the vehicle was demolished, its hood was ripped off and its front wheels were scattered on the freeway.

The vehicle also caught fire, though Tesla said no one was in the vehicle when that happened. The company said the crash was made worse by a missing or damaged safety shield on the end of the freeway barrier that is supposed to reduce the impact into the concrete lane divider.

The crash happened in Mountain View, in California’s Silicon Valley. The driver was Walter Huang, 38, a software engineer for Apple.

“None of this changes how devastating an event like this is or how much we feel for our customer’s family and friends,” Tesla said on its website late Friday.

Earlier this month, a self-driving Volvo SUV being tested by ride-hailing service Uber struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.

Tesla Inc. defended its Autopilot feature, saying that while it doesn’t prevent all accidents, it makes them less likely to occur than is the case for vehicles without it.

Federal investigators are looking into last week’s crash, as well a separate crash in January of a Tesla Model S that may have been operating under the Autopilot system.
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AP Analysis: Blacks Largely Missing From High-Salary Positions

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

Jonathan Garland’s fascination with architecture started early: He spent much of his childhood designing Lego houses and gazing at Boston buildings on rides with his father away from their largely minority neighborhood.

But when Garland looked around at his architectural college, he didn’t see many who looked like him. There were few black faces among students, and fewer teaching skills or giving lectures.

“If you do something simple like Google ‘architects’ and you go to the images tab, you’re primarily going to see white males,” said Garland, 35, who’s worked at Boston and New York architectural firms. “That’s the image, that’s the brand, that’s the look of an architect.”

And that’s not uncommon in other lucrative fields, 50 years after the Reverend Martin Luther King, a leader in the fight for equal employment opportunities, was assassinated.

An Associated Press analysis of government data has found that black workers are chronically underrepresented compared with whites in high-salary jobs in technology, business, life sciences and engineering, among other areas. Instead, many black workers find jobs in low-wage, less prestigious fields where they’re overrepresented, such as food service or preparation, building maintenance and office work, the AP analysis found.

‘Other America’

In one of his final speeches, King described the “Other America,” where unemployment and underemployment created a “fatigue of despair” for African-Americans. Despite economic progress for blacks in areas such as incomes and graduation rates, some experts say many African-Americans remain part of this “Other America,” with little hope of attaining top professional jobs, thanks to systemic yet subtle racism.

The AP analysis found that a white worker had a far better chance than a black one of holding a job in the 11 categories with the highest median annual salaries, as listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The ratio of white-to-black workers is about 10-to-1 in management, 8-to-1 in computers and mathematics, 12-to-1 in law and 7-to-1 in education — compared with a ratio of 5.5 white workers for every black one in all jobs nationally. The top five high-salary fields have a median income range of $65,000 to $100,000, compared with $36,000 for all occupations nationwide.

In Boston, a hub for technology and innovation and home to prestigious universities, white workers outnumber black ones by about 27-to-1 in computer- and mathematics-related professions, compared with the overall ratio of 9.5-to-1 for workers in the city. Overall, Boston’s ratio of white-to-black workers is wider than that of the nation in six of the top 10 high-income fields.

Boston, where King had deep ties, earning his doctorate and meeting his wife, has a history of racial discord. Eight years after King’s assassination, at the height of turbulent school desegregation, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from an anti-busing rally at City Hall showed a white man attacking a black bystander with an American flag.

The young victim was Theodore Landsmark. He’s now 71, a lawyer, an architect and director of Northeastern University’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy.

Why progress lags

He said “structural discrimination” is the overarching cause of disproportionate race representation in high-salary fields. Landsmark and others say gains are elusive for myriad reasons: Substandard schools in low-income neighborhoods. White-dominated office cliques. Boardrooms that prefer familiarity to diversity. Discriminatory hiring practices. Companies that claim a lack of qualified candidates but have no programs to train minority talent.

Some also say investors are more likely to support white startups. When Rica Elysee, a lifelong Boston resident who grew up in predominantly black neighborhoods, brought her idea of an online platform linking beauty professionals with customers for in-home appointments to investors, she was shunned, she said.

“They said I didn’t belong in the program, that they couldn’t identify with it because they weren’t black,” said Elysee, 32, who initially marketed BeautyLynk to black women like herself. “I remember crying pretty harshly. They couldn’t relate to what I was doing.”

Some even advised her to move out of Boston, which had a booming innovation economy but was “not encouraging minorities in the tech space,” she said. Three years later, Elysee said BeautyLynk is slowly growing but still needs capital.

Most American metro areas are like Boston, with AP’s analysis showing that racial disparities in employment are indifferent to geography and politics. California’s Silicon Valley struggles to achieve diversity in computer fields. In Seattle, home to Amazon, whites outnumber blacks nearly 28-to-1 in computer- and math-related fields. Financial powerhouse New York has a 3-to-1 ratio of white-to-black workers in all occupations, but nearly 6-to-1 in business and finance. Hollywood shows inequality in entertainment, with almost nine whites for every black worker.

In Atlanta, King’s hometown, the proportional representation of black-to-white workers is close to even in many fields. Many reasons are cited. Atlanta has historically black colleges and universities such as King’s alma mater, Morehouse; the first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, pressed for policies helping black professionals after his 1973 election; and events like the 1996 Olympics opened doors for entrepreneurs of all races.

Nationally, it’s much different

Atlanta is an exception. For nearly all of the past half-century, black unemployment nationally has hovered at about twice that of whites.

President Donald Trump touted on Twitter that December’s 6.8 percent unemployment rate for blacks was the lowest in 45 years — a number critics say ignores a greater reality. For example, in an economy that increasingly demands advanced degrees, Department of Education data show that black representation among graduates in science, tech, engineering and mathematics peaked at 9.9 percent in 2010 and has been slowly declining.

In Boston, Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh said in a recent speech that the city is addressing the issue and is committed to placing 20,000 low-income residents in “good-paying jobs” by 2022.

Landsmark said stronger role models may be a solution. As Boston Architectural College’s president, he mentored Garland. They discussed race issues in the professional world — as when Garland, trying to land jobs in his neighborhood, realized many people who looked like him were unfamiliar with the very concept of architecture. He once had to explain to a homeowner who wanted his roof reframed: “I’m not a builder, I’m an architect.”

Today, Garland speaks at high schools and works at the DREAM Collaborative, which focuses on projects in low-income neighborhoods.

“I know the barriers exist in other folks’ minds, and I have to disprove that,” he said. “I keep myself focused on the issues.”
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Trump Blasts California Governor’s Immigrant Pardons

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

President Donald Trump blasted California Governor Jerry Brown on Saturday for his pardon of five ex-convicts facing deportation, including two who fled the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia with their families four decades ago.

In a tweet, Trump referred to Brown as “Moonbeam,” a nickname a newspaper columnist coined for him in the 1970s. Trump then listed the ex-convicts’ crimes; they included misdemeanor domestic violence, drug possession, and kidnapping and robbery.

Trump wrote: “Is this really what the great people of California want?”

A spokesman for Brown responded to a request for comment with more information about the five men but did not directly address Trump’s criticism.

In a news release about the pardons on Friday, the governor’s office said that “those granted pardons all completed their sentences years ago and the majority were convicted of drug-related or other nonviolent crimes.”

“Pardons are not granted unless they are earned,” the governor’s office said.

Brown’s pardons marked the third time the Democrat has intervened on behalf of immigrants who were deported or faced deportation over convictions. Brown has accused the Trump administration of “basically going to war” with California over immigration policy.

Brown’s pardons don’t automatically stop deportation proceedings, but eliminate the convictions on which authorities based their intentions.

Pardon for Arpaio

Trump has been criticized for his own pardon, that of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted last year of a misdemeanor contempt charge for flouting the courts in carrying out his signature immigration patrols.

Trump’s pardon spared Arpaio from a possible jail sentence. The 85-year-old longtime lawman announced a run for Senate in January.

Those pardoned Friday by Brown included Sokha Chhan and Phann Pheach, who face deportation to Cambodia, a country ruled in the 1970s by the genocidal Khmer Rouge. Chhan was convicted of two counts of misdemeanor domestic violence in 2002 and served about a year in jail. Pheach was convicted of possessing drugs and obstructing a police officer in 2005 and served six months in jail. His wife said he is in federal custody.

Also pardoned was Daniel Maher, who served five years in prison stemming from the 1994 armed robbery of a San Jose auto parts store. He was convicted of kidnapping, robbery and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Maher is facing deportation to China, where he has never lived. Maher is from Macau, which became part of China after his family immigrated to California when he was 3.

Also pardoned while facing deportation were Daniel Mena and Francisco Acevedo Alaniz. Mena served three years of probation after being convicted of possessing illegal drugs in 2003. Alaniz served five months in prison for a 1997 car theft conviction.

The governor is a former Jesuit seminarian and traditionally issues pardons close to major Christian holidays. Easter falls on Sunday.

California’s longest-serving governor has now issued 1,519 pardons, including 404 during his first two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983.
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Migrant Drug Test Explodes Into Italy-France Diplomatic Spat

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEU

Italy summoned the French ambassador for consultations Saturday after armed French border patrol agents used an Italian train station to force a Nigerian train passenger to provide a urine sample for a drug test.

France said it had a right to use the facility at the Bardonecchia train station west of Turin, citing a 1990 agreement.

But Italy shot back, saying just this month it had told French customs authorities that the station room was now off-limits because a humanitarian aid group was there to provide care and counseling for migrants seeking to make the dangerous Alpine crossing into France.

The incident underscored the heightened tensions following Italy’s inconclusive March 4 election, which became a referendum on Italy’s management of the European migrant crisis. Populist, right-wing and anti-immigrant parties scored big, capitalizing on Italian anger with the migrant influx and refusal of other European governments to share the burden.

The humanitarian group Rainbow4Africa had raised the alarm at what it called a “raid” Friday night by five armed French border agents. It accused the agents of intimidating its doctor and other workers at Baronecchia and of violating the rights of the Nigerian passenger in their custody.

A volunteer who saw the incident told Sky TG24 that the Nigerian had Italian identity papers and a valid Paris-Naples train ticket.

Agreement cited

The French budget ministry said its rail agents asked to use the facility to respect the rights of the man on the train, whom they suspected of having drugs on him. It cited a 1990 agreement allowing such use of the room, and added that the urine test turned out negative.

Italy, however, said French authorities were well aware the room was no longer available. It said French and Italian talks were even planned in Turin on April 16 to discuss further cooperation.

The foreign ministry said during its consultations with French Ambassador Christian Masset it lodged its “firm protest” over the “unacceptable” behavior of the French agents, and warned that border cooperation was now undermined.

Bardonecchia Mayor Francesco Avato said the French had no right to enter the facility, which he said the city operates with Rainbow4Africa as a “neutral” space to try to persuade migrants not to make the crossing.

Former Italian Premier Enrico Letta denounced the French move as the latest error by one of Italy’s partners in Europe.

“And Europe wonders about the outcome of Italy’s election!” he tweeted.

French and Austrian border patrol agents have stepped up their checks along Italy’s northern border to prevent migrants from entering their countries aboard trains, trucks or even on foot across the snow-covered mountains, an option that more and more desperate migrants are attempting despite the cold and danger.
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Pentagon Identifies US Soldier Killed in Syria

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEA

The Pentagon has identified the U.S. soldier who died Friday in Syria following an explosion in the northern city of Manbij.

The soldier was identified Saturday as Johnathan Dunbar, 36, from Austin, Texas. A British soldier was also killed, while five other troops were wounded by a roadside bomb blast Thursday night, according to U.S. officials.

Britain’s Defense Ministry confirmed the second fatality came from within its ranks. A defense spokesman said the British service member was embedded with U.S. forces at the time of the attack and said the coalition forces were carrying out an operation against the Islamic State group.

The attack near Manbij, a former Islamic State stronghold where U.S. forces are stationed, occurred one day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would withdraw U.S. forces in the near future.

“We’re coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon — very soon we’re coming out,” Trump said in a speech in the Midwestern U.S. state of Ohio without offering details.

A U.S. defense official said, however, the U.S. mission in Syria remained unchanged and added that U.S. troops were there to defeat IS.

The U.S. has more than 2,000 military personnel in Syria, 60 of whom have been killed since the campaign to destroy IS began in 2014.
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Syrian Army Declares Victory as Rebels Vacate Most of Ghouta

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEA

The Syrian army declared victory Saturday in eastern Ghouta after opposition fighters evacuated from most of the area near the capital, except for the town of Douma, where negotiations were still underway for rebels there to leave or face an all-out government offensive.

The government gave rebels in Douma — the area’s largest town and stronghold of the powerful Army of Islam rebel group — an ultimatum to agree on leaving by late Saturday. Some pro-government news websites reported that the army was massing troops around Douma, adding that the ultimatum might be extended until Sunday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Syrian troops had been massing troops around Douma in case negotiations collapsed.

The army statement came shortly after another group of opposition fighters and their relatives left southern and western parts of eastern Ghouta Saturday afternoon, bringing President Bashar al-Assad’s forces a step closer to eliminating threats from insurgents groups nearby.

State TV said 38 buses left the towns of Zamalka, Ein Tarma, Arbeen and Jobar, taking more than 1,700 rebels and civilians to the northwestern rebel-held province of Idlib. The channel said troops entered the towns and raised the national flag in Arbeen’s main square.

“The importance of this victory lies in restoring security and stability to the city of Damascus and its surrounding areas after the suffering of its civilians from the crimes of terrorists over several years,” said the army statement, read on TV by Brigadier General Ali Mayhoub.

Routes reopened

The government forces’ reclamation of most of eastern Ghouta reopens a major network of roads and highways that link Damascus with other parts of the country. Those routes have been closed since 2012, when rebels captured eastern suburbs of the capital.

The army statement vowed “to wipe out terrorism and bring back stability and security to all parts of Syria.”

A crushing government offensive under the cover of Russian airstrikes that began February 18 has forced opposition fighters in most of eastern Ghouta to agree to evacuate and head to Idlib province.

“Arbeen, Zamalka, Jobar and Ein Tarma in eastern Ghouta are free of terrorists,” shouted a correspondent for state-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV channel from Arbeen.

State news agency SANA said 38,000 fighters and civilians had headed to Idlib over the past two weeks, marking one of the largest displacements since Syria’s conflict began seven years ago. More than 100,000 others headed to government-controlled areas over the past weeks.

Before the last wave of violence began in eastern Ghouta last month, the U.N. had estimated that 393,000 people were living in the area under a tight government siege.

Tens of thousands of rebels and civilians have been relocated to Idlib over the past years from different parts of Syria, making it one of the most inhabited regions in the country.

The top U.N. official in Syria, Ali Al-Za’tari, told Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV in an interview aired Saturday that “Idlib cannot take more people.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that a vehicle carrying evacuees from eastern Ghouta had a road accident in the government-held village of Nahr al-Bared, leaving five fighters and three civilians dead. It said the bus had left eastern Ghouta Friday night.
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Fire Breaks Out at Aid Facility in Yemen

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEA

A massive fire was reported Saturday at a World Food Program facility in Yemen, in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida.

Yemen’s official news agency quoted a Yemeni official as saying the fire had severely damaged humanitarian aid held at the outpost. The cause of the fire was unclear.

An official told AFP the fire had engulfed four warehouses and destroyed an estimated 50 tons of food. Yemeni officials urged the United Nations to investigate.

The warehouse holds not only food but also mattresses and other supplies for Yemenis fleeing the ravages of civil war. Yemen’s current unrest broke out in 2015 between Iran-backed Shiite rebels and a Saudi-led coalition supporting the internationally recognized government.

Hodeida is a lifeline for the nation, which the U.N. says is on the verge of famine. Many Yemenis depend on food imports to survive.

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Scientist, Pop Culture Icon Stephen Hawking Mourned at Cambridge Funeral

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEU

Crowds lined the streets of Cambridge, England, on Saturday for the funeral of one of the world’s most famous scientists: physicist Stephen Hawking, who died March 14 at age 76.

The scientist, confined for decades to a wheelchair and voice synthesizer because of the disease ALS, was known for his charisma, curiosity, and a crackling sense of humor. His science books and television cameos made him a pop-culture icon.

Hawking described his research as seeking “a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

Hawking’s funeral was held Saturday at the Cambridge University church known as Great St. Mary’s. As the funeral procession arrived, bells rang 76 times — once for each year of Hawking’s life.

In addition to Hawking’s family members, caretakers, former students, and admirers, the ceremony was attended by a number of famous faces. Among them was actor Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in an award-winning film biography of his life called The Theory of Everything, released in 2014.

Redmayne’s co-star, Felicity Jones, model Lily Cole, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, and Britain’s Astronomer Royal, the Lord Rees of Ludlow (Martin Rees), were also there.

The eulogy, read by professor Faye Dowker, praised Hawking as someone “revered for his devotion as a scholar to the pursuit of knowledge.”

Hawking will be given one last high honor: his remains are to be interred in Westminster Abbey among some of Britain’s most legendary intellectuals. Hawking will take his place next to 17th-century mathematical scientist Isaac Newton and near 19th-century evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin.
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Russia’s World Cup Drives Some Students to Rare Protests

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEU

Many students would be delighted to have the World Cup in town, but not Maria Cheremnova.

The 20-year-old physics student in Moscow is one of thousands campaigning against the June 14-July 15 soccer tournament, which is set to disrupt academic life across the country.

There will be a 25,000-capacity fan zone outside the main building at Russia’s prestigious Moscow State University during exam season. In other cities, exams have been brought forward and thousands of police are set to move into dorm rooms.

The Moscow fan zone – a public viewing area with a big screen, beer and music – is on prime real estate near the vast Luzhniki arena, the river and the main university building, a Stalin-era colossus that ranks among the Russian capital’s most recognizable structures.

The building is also home to around 6,500 students. Residents say it doesn’t have great soundproofing.

“I came to university to study, not to watch football and listen to that noise,” Cheremnova said. “Imagine 25,000 people and the events at night. It’ll all be visible, with lights, a big screen, music and fans, who aren’t very quiet guys. It’s going to stop people sleeping before their exams. It’s just awful.”

It will also mean extra strain on already struggling transport networks – the fan zone is two subway stops from Luzhniki stadium – and fans could damage a nearby nature reserve, Cheremnova claimed.

A group of Moscow State University students and recent graduates has gathered more than 4,600 signatures demanding the fan zone be moved to another location. They said more students and staff would have signed but feared retaliation from the university administration. When attempting to deliver the petition to the rector’s office, security guards blocked the way and elevator access was cut to that floor only, supposedly for repair.

Russian universities have little tradition of student protest. While they were hotbeds of activism before the Russian Revolution of 1917, in Soviet times access to a college education was closely linked to political loyalty and membership of groups like the Young Communist League.

World Cup organizers have revised earlier plans for Moscow’s fan zone to be larger and closer to the university. FIFA said “to lessen the impact of the event on students and the adjacent infrastructure of the university, it was agreed to move the stage away from the main building by several meters, to reduce the capacity to 25,000 spectators and to change access flows.”

Opposition not only in Moscow

Across Russia, the tournament has brought upheaval for students.

The Russian academic year often runs well into the summer months, and late June is usually prime time for exams.

In most of the 11 host cities, university dorms are due to turn into temporary barracks for police and National Guard troops brought in from out of town for the tournament.

Many universities have brought forward examinations, often by more than a month, to avoid the World Cup and free up dorm space for security forces.

That means semesters have been cut short with little warning, forcing students to cram more studies into less time. Cheremnova said that some Moscow State University students were told to prepare for earlier examinations, only for the decision to be reversed.

At the Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don, semesters run back-to-back since “the winter vacation was postponed until the summer period,” according to spokesman Andrei Svechnikov.

What’s angering students more than anything else is the prospect of being forced to move out of rooms they’ve paid for.

Despite official denials from the Education and Science Ministry that any students will be kicked out to make way for security forces, more than 2,800 students have signed a petition against alleged removals.

“There will be no forced eviction of students under this process,” the ministry told The Associated Press, adding that security forces will “not disrupt the learning process.”

The AP contacted 17 universities cited in local media reports as planning to evict students for the World Cup. Of those, six said no students would be forced to move, one said a small number would be required to move to other dorms, and 10 failed to reply.

In many cities, students report mixed messages from university officials over accommodation and study schedules.

Zhokhangir Mirzadzhanov, a student in the western city of Kaliningrad, said his university initially offered to buy tickets for students to leave the city and free up dorm space for the tournament but details remained unclear.

“There are a lot of simple issues that they still can’t answer,” he said. “What comes next, no one knows.”
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Trump’s Talk of a Syria Pullout Nothing New

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEA

President Donald Trump’s unscripted remark this week about pulling out of Syria “very soon,” while at odds with his own policy, was not a one-off: For weeks, top advisers have been fretting about an overly hasty withdrawal as the president has increasingly told them privately he wants out, U.S. officials said.

Only two months ago, Trump’s aides thought they’d persuaded him that the U.S. needed to keep its presence in Syria open-ended – not only because the Islamic State group has yet to be entirely defeated, but also because the resulting power vacuum could be filled by other extremist groups or by Iran. Trump signed off on a major speech in January in which then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the new strategy and declared “it is vital for the United States to remain engaged in Syria.”

But by mid-February, Trump was telling his top aides in meetings that as soon as victory can be declared against IS, he wanted American troops out of Syria, said the officials. Alarm bells went off at the State Department and the Pentagon, where officials have been planning for a gradual, methodical shift from a military-led operation to a diplomatic mission to start rebuilding basic infrastructure like roads and sewers in the war-wracked country.

In one sign that Trump is serious about reversing course and withdrawing from Syria, the White House this week put on hold some $200 million in U.S. funding for stabilization projects in Syria, officials said. The money, to have been spent by the State Department for infrastructure projects like power, water and roads, had been announced by Tillerson at an aid conference last month in Kuwait.

The officials said the hold, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is not necessarily permanent and will be discussed at senior-level inter-agency meetings next week.

The officials weren’t authorized to comment publicly and demanded anonymity.

The State Department said it continually reviews appropriate assistance levels and how best they might be utilized. And the agency said it continues to work with the international community, members of the Coalition, and our partners on the ground to provide much needed stabilization support to vulnerable areas in Syria.

“The United States is working everyday on the ground and with the international community to help stabilize those areas liberated from ISIS and identify ways to move forward with reconstruction once there has been a peaceful political transition away from [Syrian President al-Bashar] Assad,” according to a statement from the State Department.

‘Very soon’

Trump’s first public suggestion he was itching to pull out came in a news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on February 23, when Trump said the U.S. was in Syria to “get rid of ISIS and go home.” On Thursday, in a domestic policy speech in Ohio, Trump went further.

“We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon – very soon, we’re coming out,” Trump said.

The public declaration caught U.S. national security agencies off-guard and unsure whether Trump was formally announcing a new, unexpected change in policy. Inundated by inquiries from journalists and foreign officials, the Pentagon and State Department reached out to the White House’s National Security Council for clarification.

The White House’s ambiguous response, officials said: Trump’s words speak for themselves.

“The mission of the Department of Defense to defeat ISIS has not changed,” said Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman.

Still, without a clear directive from the president, planning has not started for a withdrawal from Syria, officials said, and Trump has not advocated a specific timetable.

For Trump, who campaigned on an “America First” mantra, Syria is just the latest foreign arena where his impulse has been to limit the U.S. role. Like with NATO and the United Nations, Trump has called for other governments to step up and share more of the burden so that Washington doesn’t foot the bill. His administration has been crisscrossing the globe seeking financial commitments from other countries to fund reconstruction in both Syria and Iraq, but with only limited success.

Yet it’s unclear how Trump’s impulse to pull out could be affected by recent staff shake-ups on his national security team. Tillerson and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both advocates for keeping a U.S. presence in Syria, were recently fired, creating questions about the longevity of the plan Tillerson announced in his Stanford University speech in January. But Trump also replaced McMaster with John Bolton, a vocal advocate for U.S. intervention and aggressive use of the military overseas.

The abrupt change in the president’s thinking has drawn concern both inside and outside the United States.

Other nations that make up the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State fear that Trump’s impulse to pull out hastily would allow the notoriously resourceful IS militants to regroup, several European diplomats said. That concern has been heightened by the fact that U.S.-backed ground operations against remaining IS militants in Syria were put on hold earlier this month.

‘Serious and growing concern’

The ground operations had to be paused because Kurdish fighters who had been spearheading the campaign against IS shifted to a separate fight with Turkish forces, who began combat operations in the town of Afrin against Kurds who are considered by Ankara to be terrorists that threaten Turkey’s security.

“This is a serious and growing concern,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said this month.

Beyond just defeating IS, there are other strategic U.S. objectives that could be jeopardized by a hasty withdrawal, officials said, chiefly those related to Russia and Iran.

Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally, and other regional nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are deeply concerned about the influence of Iran and its allies, including the Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah, inside Syria. The U.S. military presence in Syria has been seen as a buffer against unchecked Iranian activity, and especially against Tehran’s desire to establish a contiguous land route from Iran to the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon.

An American withdrawal would also likely cede Syria to Russia, which along with Iran has been propping up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and would surely fill the void left behind by the U.S. That prospect has alarmed countries like France, which has historic ties to the Levant.

In calling for a withdrawal “very soon,” Trump may be overly optimistic in his assessment of how quickly the anti-IS campaign can be wrapped up, the officials said. Although the group has been driven from basically all of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and 95 percent of its former territory in Syria, the remaining five percent is becoming increasingly difficult to clear and could take many months, the officials said.

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Pope Leads Good Friday Observances in Rome

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEU

Pope Francis presided over solemn Good Friday services amid tight security at Rome’s Colosseum for the Via Crucis procession. Italian police and army soldiers were on high alert, with Holy Week coinciding with a spate of arrests of suspected Islamic extremists around Italy.

Francis presided at a traditional candle-lit Way of the Cross procession around Rome’s ancient Colosseum. Some 20,000 people turned out to take part in the event with the pope on the most somber day in the Christian liturgical calendar, which commemorates the death of Jesus on the cross.

Rome authorities increased security this year with checks carried out as the faithful approached the area. Italian police carried out four raids against suspected supporters of Islamist terrorism, arresting seven people, including one man who was believed to have been planning a truck attack.

The Way of the Cross procession marks 14 events, called stations, beginning with Roman governor Pontius Pilate’s condemning Jesus to death, until his burial in a tomb. This year the meditations at each station were written by Catholic high school and college students in keeping with Francis’ decision to dedicate 2018 to addressing the hopes and concerns of young Catholics.

At the end, he delivered a meditation of his own, denouncing those who seek power, money and conflict. He prayed that the Catholic Church be always an “ark of salvation, a source of certainty and truth.”

Pope Francis also said many should feel “shame because our generations are leaving young people a world that is fractured by divisions and wars, a world devoured by selfishness where young people, children, the sick and the elderly are marginalized.”

The pope praised those in the Church who are trying to arouse “humanity’s sleeping conscience” through their work helping the poor, immigrants, and prison inmates.

Earlier, the pope presided over a solemn Passion of the Lord service in St. Peter’s Basilica which was kept open despite several pieces of plaster having come crashing down from a pillar of the church on Thursday. The damage was swiftly repaired.

Thousands of faithful filled the basilica. Francis lay prostrate in prayer on the marble pavement in front of the altar at the start of the chant-filled evening service. Later, the crucifix was carried in procession from the back of the basilica to the pope who then kissed it. The other concelebrants followed his example.

On Holy Saturday, in the evening, the pope will celebrate the solemn Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, followed by the joyful Easter Sunday Mass marking what Christians observe as Christ’s resurrection.

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Sierra Leone Presidential Runoff Calm; Low Turnout Reported

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeAF

Voting in Sierra Leone’s presidential runoff election seemed peaceful Saturday during the Easter holiday weekend, as citizens hoped to complete a process started on March 7.

The current president, Ernest Bai Koroma, is stepping down this year after serving two five-year terms.

Voters Saturday are casting ballots for either the ruling All Peoples Congress Party’s presidential candidate Dr. Samura Matthew Wilson Kamara, or the Sierra Leone People’s Party presidential candidate, Julius Maada Bio.

This is the second time opposition candidate Bio has run for the country’s top government job. He lost the 2012 election to President Koroma.

Reports said turnout seemed lower than in the first round of voting, possibly because of heavy security precautions. Reuters news agency reports that driving is banned, forcing voters to walk to their polling stations.

Saturday’s runoff was delayed for four days by a court challenge to the first-round results. The challenge cited “irregularities” that resulted in a temporary injunction to give the election commission more time to prepare.

The new president will have to contend with issues such as rebuilding after the country’s devastating Ebola virus epidemic of 2014-2016, as well as a mudslide in August that killed an estimated 1,000 people in the nation’s capital, Freetown.

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Sierra Leone Votes for President

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeAF

Voters in Sierra Leone are going to the polls Saturday for a runoff presidential election, after none of the 16 candidates failed to clinch the 55 percent of votes necessary to win in the first round earlier this month.

The presidential vote was scheduled for Tuesday but was delayed so the High Court could hear a complaint from a member of the All People’s Congress party.

Voters are casting their ballots for either the ruling APC’s presidential candidate Dr. Samura Matthew Wilson Kamara or the Sierra Leone People’s Party presidential candidate Julius Maada Bio.

Kamara ran on a platform of continuing the APC’s track record of infrastructure development. But opposition groups pointed to alleged corruption by the ruling party, as well as poor handling of crises such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014.

This is the second time opposition candidate Bio has run for the country’s top government job. He lost the 2012 election to current President Ernest Bai Koroma who must step down this year after serving two terms.
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UN’s Guterres Calls for Independent Investigation into Gaza Clashes

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an “independent and transparent investigation” into the deadly clashes along the Israel-Gaza border Friday that killed at least 15 Palestinians and injured about 1,400 others, including more than 750 injured by live fire.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the unraveling situation in Gaza, but did not decide on any action or joint statement.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., said the emergency meeting was held “despite fierce opposition by Israel and the United States, and requests to postpone the meeting until after the Passover holiday.

“While Jews around the world gathered with their family at the Seder table to celebrate the Passover holiday, the Palestinians sunk to a new deceitful low so that they could use the U.N. to spread lies about Israel,” Danon said.

The Israeli military said its troops used “riot dispersal means” to quell one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations and outbursts of violence along the border in recent years.

Palestinians border protest

Violence erupted as thousands of Palestinians approached the border. The Israeli military said its troops responded to “main instigators” who were throwing stones and rolling burning tires. The Israeli military also accused militants of trying to carry out attacks under the cover of mass protests.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces fired live bullets, rubber-coated steel pellets and tear gas.

It was the deadliest day in Gaza, a self-governing Palestinian territory, since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

U.N. deputy political affairs chief Taye-Brook Zerihoun said at the emergency Security Council meeting that the situation in Gaza “might deteriorate in the coming days” and called for civilians not to be targeted.

U.S. diplomat Walter Miller told the council, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life today.”

He urged “those involved to take steps to lower tensions.” Miller also said it was unfortunate that Israel, a close U.S. ally, could not take part in Friday’s meeting because of the Passover holiday.

Mansour Al-Otaibi, Kuwait’s ambassador to the United Nations, said Israel’s actions were “a violation of the international humanitarian law.”

Protest camps

Palestinians have constructed protest tent camps along the entire length of the Gaza Strip in five locations that are expected to remain in place for six weeks. Entire families — men, women and children — were expected to participate in the tent camp demonstrations.

The Israeli military estimated about 30,000 demonstrators were taking part in the protests.

The weekslong demonstrations, to end May 15, are designed to commemorate the Nakba or “catastrophe” when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had to flee their land or were expelled during the war in 1948 that led to the creation of Israel.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned the Gaza demonstrators in an Arabic post on Twitter: “The leadership of Hamas is playing with your lives. Anyone who comes close to the fence today puts himself at risk. I suggest to you to continue your lives and not participate in a provocation.”

Israel has deployed more than 100 snipers along the Gaza Strip.

The demonstration is expected to end at the same time Washington plans to open an embassy in Jerusalem, a move that has infuriated Palestinians who have claimed the eastern section of the city as the capital of their future state.
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UN Chief Calls for Independent Probe Into Gaza Clashes

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEA

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an “independent and transparent investigation” into the deadly clashes along the Israel-Gaza border Friday that killed at least 15 Palestinians and and injured about 1,400 others, including more than 750 injured by live fire.

Thousands of people are attending the funerals of some of those killed, as Palestinians observe a national day of mourning Saturday.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the unraveling situation in Gaza, but did not decide on any action or joint statement.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., who did not attend session because of the Jewish Passover holiday, said in a written statement the emergency meeting was held “Despite fierce opposition by Israel and the United States, and requests to postpone the meeting until after the Passover holiday….”

Danon said “While Jews around the world gathered with their family at the Seder table to celebrate the Passover holiday, the Palestinians sunk to a new deceitful low so that they could use the U.N. to spread lies about Israel.”

The Israeli military said its troops used “riot dispersal means” to quell one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations and outbursts of violence along the border in recent years.

Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour strongly condemned the “massacre” of “unarmed defenseless people” and called for “international protection” for those living under Israeli occupation. He also lashed out at the U.S., saying if it wants to act constructively on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it should allow the U.N. Security Council to shoulder its responsibility, and uphold international law and Security Council resolutions.

Palestinians border protest

Violence erupted as thousands of Palestinians approached the border separating Israel from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said its troops responded to “main instigators” who were throwing stones and rolling burning tires. The Israeli military also accused militants of trying to carry out attacks under the cover of mass protests.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces fired live bullets, rubber-coated steel pellets and tear gas.

It was the deadliest day in Gaza, a self-governing Palestinian territory, since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

U.S. diplomat Walter Miller told the council, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life today.”

Mansour Al-Otaibi, Kuwait’s ambassador to the United Nations, said Israel’s actions were “a violation of the international humanitarian law.”

Protest camps

The Israeli military estimated about 30,000 demonstrators were taking part in the protests.

Israel has deployed more than 100 snipers along the Gaza Strip.

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NY’s Immigrant Taxi Drivers Despair as Taxi Industry Slumps

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

A financially distraught yellow cab driver from Romania recently hanged himself in his New York garage, marking the fourth suicide among city taxi drivers in as many months. In the tragedy’s aftermath, members of New York’s taxicab drivers union are renewing their calls for a cap on the number of app-based for-hire vehicles, such as Uber and Lyft, which they say are driving workers of a once-thriving industry into the ground. VOA’s Ramon Taylor reports.
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US Says ‘Maximum Pressure’ Campaign Has Drawn Kim Jong Un Out of Isolation

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

The U.S. is welcoming an upcoming summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. As VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, the Trump administration has expressed optimism Pyongyang will take steps toward denuclearization but is calling for the U.S.-led maximum pressure campaign to continue until that happens.
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Kentucky Teachers Latest to Protest Public Worker Pay, Benefits

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

Hundreds of Kentucky teachers called in sick Friday to protest last-minute changes to their pension system, forcing nearly two dozen districts to close while angry educators rallied outside the governor’s office to demand he not sign the bill.

With thunderous chants of “shut it down” echoing throughout the Capitol Rotunda, Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear used a megaphone to announce he would sue to block the bill’s implementation if Republican Gov. Matt Bevin signs it into law.

Bevin had not signed the bill as of Friday afternoon. Thursday night, he tweeted public employees owe lawmakers a “debt of gratitude” for passing the bill.

Growing educator unrest

The show of force comes amid growing unrest among public educators nationwide, led by thousands of West Virginia teachers who walked off the job for nine days earlier this year to secure a 5 percent pay raise. Teacher unrest spread to another deep red state in Oklahoma, where the GOP-led legislature approved money for teacher raises and more school funding. Teachers are mulling whether the current offer from lawmakers is enough to avert a work stoppage.

Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler said the union did not organize Friday’s school closures, saying “I can’t control what teachers do.”

“I support their right to call in sick if they are ill, and they are sick,” Winkler said during a news conference at KEA headquarters, prompting some teachers in the crowd to begin coughing.

Schools close for the day

Jefferson County officials in Louisville, one of the largest school districts in the country, said they couldn’t get enough substitutes to cover all their classes Friday. In Fayette County, officials said more than a third of school employees in the Lexington district were staying home.

North of Lexington, the Scott County school district called off classes. It said on Facebook that since the bill’s passage, dozens of teachers requested substitutes to fill in for them Friday.

“We can currently only fill 54 of the nearly 150 that we need,” the statement said. “That leaves too many classes not covered, which causes a situation that is unsafe and unproductive for students and staff.”

Winkler said a statewide work stoppage is still an option. The union is planning a rally Monday at the state capitol when much of the state is on spring break and lawmakers are scheduled to reconvene to possibly vote on a two-year operating budget.

“If this budget is not in the best interest of public education students and public service then we will react,” Winkler said.

Pension funding among the worst

Kentucky’s pension system is among the worst-funded in the country. The state is at least $41 billion short of the money it needs to pay retirement benefits over the next 30 years, placing a strain on state and local government finances.

On Thursday night, the state legislature passed a bill that preserves most benefits for current public workers. But it would require all new teachers to use a hybrid plan that does not guarantee them a set pension amount when they retire. Instead, they would live off the money accumulated in their accounts from contributions and investment returns, which would be guaranteed not to lose money.

“Why would anybody go into teaching now in the state of Kentucky,” asked Whitney Walker, a government teacher at Lafayette High School in Fayette County, the state’s second-largest district that was forced to close Friday. “We need good teachers, not just anybody who would walk in the door.”

Beshear, a potential candidate for governor in 2019, said the bill violates the state’s inviolable contract by freezing the accumulation of sick days to boost retirement benefits. Winkler said the KEA supports Beshear and will join him in any potential lawsuit. But Republicans who support the bill noted a proposal the KEA supported included similar language.

Another option would be to challenge the way lawmakers passed the bill. A state law requires the bill to have a financial analysis before passing. But acting House Speaker David Osborne said the Supreme Court has interpreted that law as a House rule, which lawmakers can suspend at any time.
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Centuries-Old Easter Tradition Continues at Adobe Church in New Mexico

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeUS

A centuries-old pilgrimage to a tiny adobe church in northern New Mexico attracted thousands of visitors Friday, some walking through the night along desert highways on their journey.

The Easter-week tradition dates back more than two centuries. Many participants trek more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Santa Fe or beyond.

At the shrine, the faithful filed through an adjacent room that holds a small pit of dirt that some say has curative powers. Visitors knelt to scoop dirt into plastic bags, ambling by the hundreds through a passageway lined with cast-off crutches that bear testimony to healing.

’There are healing powers here’

Elementary school teacher Anne Probst walked the final eight miles (12 kilometers) of the journey to Chimayo, bearing a hand-carved statue of the crucifixion on her back that her ailing father made.

Her family has been making the trip to Chimayo from Santa Fe for decades. This year her thoughts dwelled on her father and a young student with severe health problems, as well as the victims of a February mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

“There are healing powers here, and there is meditation and prayer on the walk,” to get here, Probst said. “I thought a lot about our country. There’s a lot of healing that needs to be done.”

Road filled with faithful

The road to Chimayo was lined with vendors of coffee, walking sticks, religious memorabilia and snacks including snow cones and corn on the cob. Gridlocked stretches of highway were patrolled by sheriff’s deputies on horseback. The faithful carried crosses, large and small. Some pushed children in strollers, or strummed guitars to pass the time.

Outside the shrine, participants lined up by the hundreds under clear skies for a chance to wade slowly into the tiny church at Chimayo that is listed as a National Historic Landmark.

Roman Catholicism in northern New Mexico dates back more than 400 years to the arrival of the Spanish in 1598.
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Palestinian Authority: At Least 15 Palestinians Killed in Gaza Mass Demonstration

Posted on 03/31/2018 by SeeEA

At least 15 Palestinians were killed and hundreds of others injured Friday by Israeli security forces along the Israel-Gaza border, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military said its troops used “riot dispersal means” to quell one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations and outbursts of violence along the border in recent years.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces fired live bullets, rubber-coated steel pellets and tear gas, killing at least 15 Palestinians and injuring about 1,400 others, including more than 750 injured by live fire.

It was the deadliest day in Gaza, a self-governing Palestinian territory, since last fall.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Friday evening about the situation in Gaza. U.N. deputy political affairs chief Taye-Brook Zerihoun said the situation in Gaza “might deteriorate in the coming days” and called for civilians not to be targeted.

U.S. diplomat Walter Miller told the council, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life today.”

Mansour Al-Otaibi, Kuwait’s Ambassador to the United Nations, said Israel’s actions were “a violation of the international humanitarian law.”

Six-week effort

Palestinians have constructed protest tent camps along the entire length of the Gaza Strip in five locations that are expected to remain in place for six weeks. Whole families — men, women and children — were expected to participate in the tent camp demonstrations.

The Israeli military estimated about 30,000 demonstrators were taking part in the protests.

Israel has deployed more than 100 snipers along the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., said the demonstration is an “organized planned provocation” and asserted “Israel’s right to defend its sovereignty and protect its citizens.”
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Pippa Middleton’s Father-in-Law Is Subject of Rape Probe in France, Court Source Says

Posted on 03/30/2018 by SeeEU

The father-in-law of Pippa Middleton, whose sister Kate is married to Britain’s Prince William, has been placed under formal investigation over suspected rape of a minor, a court source told Reuters on Friday.

David Matthews, who is the father of Pippa Middleton’s husband, James Matthews, was arrested Tuesday by the Juvenile Protection Brigade (BPM) and formally put under investigation for suspected rape of a minor under his authority, said the source, confirming a report on Europe 1 radio.

Paris prosecutors arrested Matthews during a visit to France, and later released him and placed him under judicial control, the source said. The source did not say when he was released. French police can hold suspects 24 or 48 hours in such cases.

The source said the alleged rape took place in 1998 or 1999. Europe 1 reported that a complaint was filed in 2017.

Reuters could not immediately reach Matthews nor any spokespeople or lawyers for him.

Being placed under judicial control means that prosecutors have attached certain conditions to his release or imposed certain limits on whom he can meet or where he can go. The source did not say what conditions had been attached in Matthews’ case.

Pippa Middleton came to national attention in Britain as the maid of honor at her sister’s royal wedding to William in 2011. Her own lavish wedding to James Matthews last May was one of the most widely reported social events of the year, attended by William and his brother Harry, grandsons of Queen Elizabeth.
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Could Enemies Target Undersea Cables That Link the World?

Posted on 03/30/2018 by SeeEU

Russian ships are skulking around underwater communications cables, causing the U.S. and its allies to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths.

Is Moscow interested in cutting or tapping the cables? Does it want the West to worry it might? Is there a more innocent explanation? Unsurprisingly, Russia isn’t saying.

But whatever Moscow’s intentions, U.S. and Western officials are increasingly troubled by their rival’s interest in the 400 fiber-optic cables that carry most of world’s calls, emails and texts, as well as $10 trillion worth of daily financial transactions.

“We’ve seen activity in the Russian navy, and particularly undersea in their submarine activity, that we haven’t seen since the ’80s,” General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the U.S. European Command, told Congress this month.

Without undersea cables, a bank in Asian countries couldn’t send money to Saudi Arabia to pay for oil. U.S. military leaders would struggle to communicate with troops fighting extremists in Afghanistan and the Middle East. A student in Europe wouldn’t be able to Skype his parents in the United States.

Small passageways

All this information is transmitted along tiny glass fibers encased in undersea cables that, in some cases, are little bigger than a garden hose. All told, there are 620,000 miles of fiber-optic cable running under the sea, enough to loop around Earth nearly 25 times.

Most lines are owned by private telecommunications companies, including giants like Google and Microsoft. Their locations are easily identified on public maps, with swirling lines that look like spaghetti. While cutting one cable might have limited impact, severing several simultaneously or at choke points could cause a major outage.

The Russians “are doing their homework and, in the event of a crisis or conflict with them, they might do rotten things to us,” said Michael Kofman, a Russian military expert at nonprofit research group CNA Corp.

It’s not Moscow’s warships and submarines that are making NATO and U.S. officials uneasy. It’s Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research, whose specialized surface ships, submarines, underwater drones and minisubs conduct reconnaissance, underwater salvage and other work.

One ship run by the directorate is the Yantar. It’s a modest, 354-foot oceanographic vessel that holds a crew of about 60. It most recently was off South America’s coast helping Argentina search for a lost submarine.

Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the Russian parliament’s publication, last October said the Yantar has equipment “designed for deep-sea tracking” and “connecting to top-secret communication cables.” The publication said that in September 2015, the Yantar was near Kings Bay, Georgia, home to a U.S. submarine base, “collecting information about the equipment on American submarines, including underwater sensors and the unified [U.S. military] information network.” Rossiya, a Russian state TV network, has said the Yantar not only can connect to top-secret cables but also can cut them and “jam underwater sensors with a special system.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Preparing for sabotage

There is no hard evidence that the ship is engaged in nefarious activity, said Steffan Watkins, an information technology security consultant in Canada tracking the ship. But he wonders what the ship is doing when it’s stopped over critical cables or when its Automatic Identification System tracking transponder isn’t on.

Of the Yantar’s crew, he said: “I don’t think these are the actual guys who are doing any sabotage. I think they’re laying the groundwork for future operations.”

Members of Congress are wondering, too.

Representative Joe Courtney, a Connecticut Democrat on a House subcommittee on sea power, said of the Russians, “The mere fact that they are clearly tracking the cables and prowling around the cables shows that they are doing something.”

Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, an Armed Services Committee member, said Moscow’s goal appears to be to “disrupt the normal channels of communication and create an environment of misinformation and distrust.”

The Yantar’s movements have previously raised eyebrows.

On October 18, 2016, a Syrian telecom company ordered emergency maintenance to repair a cable in the Mediterranean that provides internet connectivity to several countries, including Syria, Libya and Lebanon. The Yantar arrived in the area the day before the four-day maintenance began. It left two days before the maintenance ended. It’s unknown what work it did while there.

Watkins described another episode on November 5, 2016, when a submarine cable linking Persian Gulf nations experienced outages in Iran. Hours later, the Yantar left Oman and headed to an area about 60 miles west of the Iranian port city of Bushehr, where the cable runs ashore. Connectivity was restored just hours before the Yantar arrived on November 9. The boat stayed stationary over the site for several more days.

Undersea cables have been targets before.

At the beginning of World War I, Britain cut a handful of German underwater communications cables and tapped the rerouted traffic for intelligence. In the Cold War, the U.S. Navy sent American divers deep into the Sea of Okhotsk off the Russian coast to install a device to record Soviet communications, hoping to learn more about the U.S.S.R.’s submarine-launched nuclear capability.

Eavesdropping by spies

More recently, British and American intelligence agencies have eavesdropped on fiber-optic cables, according to documents released by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.

In 2007, Vietnamese authorities confiscated ships carrying miles of fiber-optic cable that thieves salvaged from the sea for profit. The heist disrupted service for several months. And in 2013, Egyptian officials arrested three scuba divers off Alexandria for attempting to cut a cable stretching from France to Singapore. Five years on, questions remain about the attack on a cable responsible for about a third of all internet traffic between Egypt and Europe.

Despite the relatively few publicly known incidents of sabotage, most outages are due to accidents.

Two hundred or so cable-related outages take place each year. Most occur when ship anchors snap cables or commercial fishing equipment snags the lines. Others break during tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

But even accidental cuts can harm U.S. military operations.

In 2008 in Iraq, unmanned U.S. surveillance flights nearly screeched to a halt one day at Balad Air Base, not because of enemy mortar attacks or dusty winds. An anchor had snagged a cable hundreds of miles away from the base, situated in the “Sunni Triangle” northwest of Baghdad.

The severed cable had linked controllers based in the United States with unmanned aircraft flying intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for coalition forces in the skies over Iraq, said retired Air Force Colonel Dave Lujan of Hampton, Virginia.

“Say you’re operating a remote-controlled car and all of a sudden you can’t control it,” said Lujan, who was deputy commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group at the base when the little-publicized outage lasted for two to three days. “That’s a big impact,” he said, describing how U.S. pilots had to fly the missions instead.
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Air France, Lawyers Strike as Macron Labor Woes Grow

Posted on 03/30/2018 by SeeEU

French lawyers staged a walkout Friday while Air France staff went on strike over pay, adding to a growing wave of industrial unrest that threatens to slow President Emmanuel Macron’s reform drive.

Air France canceled a quarter of the day’s flights as its pilots, stewards and ground crew press for a 6 percent pay rise.

And courts postponed hearings as hundreds of lawyers, clerks and magistrates stopped work across the country to protest judicial reforms, among a slew of changes by the ambitious 40-year-old president riling various sections of French society.

“The government’s plan at least has the benefit of being coherent — scrimping, cutting, sacrificing everything it can,” legal profession unions said in a joint statement ahead of protests Friday afternoon.

Law unions complain that the court shake-up, which aims to streamline penal and civil proceedings and digitize the court system, will result in courts that are over-centralized and “dehumanized.”

They particularly object to the scrapping of 307 district courts and their judges which they say will result in a judiciary that is “remote from the people.”

In the meantime, staff at state rail operator SNCF will begin three months of rolling strikes, two days out of every five, on Monday evening — just as many travelers are coming back from an Easter weekend away.

The next day, refuse collectors will strike demanding the creation of a national waste service, energy workers will strike urging a new national electricity and gas service, and Air France staff will walk out again.

“The cost of living goes up, but not salaries,” Francois, an Air France employee, told AFP during a demonstration at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, saying a six percent raise represents “barely a baguette a day for a month.”

Various universities across the country have, meanwhile, been disrupted for weeks by protests against Macron’s decision to introduce an element of selection to the public university admissions process.

‘Growth first, raise later’

Macron has so far avoided the mass industrial action suffered by his predecessor Francois Hollande.

But discord has been growing, with an estimated 200,000 taking to the streets last week in protests and walkouts by workers across the public sector angered by his reforms, including plans to cut 120,000 jobs.

Elected last May, the centrist ex-investment banker has pledged to shake up everything from France’s courts to its education system.

At Air France, 32 percent of pilots were set to join Friday’s walkout along with 28 percent of cabin crew and 20 percent of ground staff, according to company estimates.

But while just 20 to 30 percent of long-haul flights were cut at Charles de Gaulle and Orly in Paris, at other airports such as Nice, as many as half of Air France flights were cancelled.

The French state owns 17.6 percent of the carrier as part of the Air France-KLM group, Europe’s second-biggest airline, which has been plagued by strikes and labor disputes in its French operations in recent years.

Eleven trade unions have already staged two Air France strikes on February 22 and March 23 seeking a six percent salary hike, with two more planned on April 3 and April 7.

Unions argue the airline should share the wealth with its staff after strong results last year, but management insists it cannot offer higher salaries without jeopardizing growth in an intensely competitive sector.

“To distribute wealth we have to create it first,” chief executive Franck Terner told Le Parisien newspaper.

Air France is set to bring in a 0.6 percent pay rise from April 1 and another 0.4 percent increase from October 1, along with bonuses and promotions equivalent to a 1.4 percent raise for ground staff — seen by unions as grossly inadequate.
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Czech Republic Extradites Russian Alleged Hacker to US

Posted on 03/30/2018 by SeeEU

The Czech Republic has extradited to the United States a Russian citizen accused of hacking the LinkedIn website and stealing 117 million passwords.

Yevgeniy Nikulin arrived in the United States early Friday, according to U.S. officials, and is expected soon to appear before a judge in San Francisco.

The agreement to send him to the United States came even as Russia also requested his extradition, highlighting the chilly diplomatic situation between Washington and Moscow.

Russia accuses Nikulin of an alleged theft from an online money transfer company in 2009. It requested Nikulin’s extradition shortly after his arrest and the U.S. extradition request.

‘Easy decision’

Robert Pelikan, Czech Minister of Justice, told CNN that it was an “easy decision” to send Nikulin to America instead of Russia because the American charges were more serious. He said he made the decision a “long time ago” but waited to announce it until all the legal proceedings were finished.

Czech Radio 7 reported that the justice minister waited until the Czech Republic’s top court rejected a last-minute appeal from Russia.

The case has been contentious in the Czech Republic, where President Milos Zeman is considered to be an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ryan visits Prague

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan visited Prague earlier this week and met with Prime Minister Andrej Babis. A spokesperson for the prime minister said the two discussed Nikulin’s extradition.

According to indictment documents, Nikulin was arrested in the Czech Republic after U.S. officials issued an international arrest warrant. He is charged with computer intrusion, aggravated identity theft and other offenses.

The indictment says Nikulin broke into the computers of the social network LinkedIn in March 2012 by stealing the username and password of an employee.
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