10 July 2019 Donald Trump called the British ambassador to the United States “a very stupid guy,”
“I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool,” Trump wrote in a series of early morning tweets doubling down on British envoy Kim Darroch. “The wacky Ambassador that the United Kingdom foisted upon the US is not someone we are thrilled with, a very stupid guy,” Trump added. London has been scrambling to stem the damage caused by the release of confidential cables from Darroch, which in addition to describing Trump as inept also called his White House “uniquely dysfunctional.” The US president’s early morning wrath was not solely reserved for Darroch. Trump also doubled down in attacking British Prime Minister Theresa May regarding Brexit, saying she “went her own foolish way was unable to get it done. A disaster!” A Saudi princess accused of ordering her bodyguard to assault a workman has gone on trial in Paris
Princess Hassa bint Salman – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s sister – faces charges of complicity to violence with a weapon and complicity to kidnap. Her bodyguard, who is alleged to have made the man kiss her feet as part of the 2016 attack, is also on trial. Both Princess Hassa, who is the subject of an international arrest warrant, and the bodyguard deny wrongdoing. Neither the princess nor her accuser were in court, AFP reported. But the bodyguard, Rani Saïdi, was there on Tuesday, surrounded by his family. Her team has said she is the victim of false allegations. “The princess is a caring, humble, approachable and cultured woman,” her lawyer Emmanuel Moyne told Reuters news agency before the trial began. The gang rape of an 18-year-old woman in Germany has sparked a dispute about lowering the age of criminal responsibility
Two of the suspects in the western city of Mülheim are aged 12 and the other three are 14. Germany does not prosecute children under 14. All five have been suspended from school and so far one 14-year-old has appeared before an investigating judge. The victim, found in bushes late on Friday, was taken to hospital. A police spokesman said the assault involved “considerable violence” and went on for a long time. The head of the police force union, Rainer Wendt, said “for years we’ve been demanding that the age of criminal responsibility be lowered in Germany”. However, Jens Gnisa, head of the German Association of Judges, argued that “the equation ‘more punishment equals less criminality’ does not work with youths”. He said the educational rules established in German law were working well to tackle juvenile crime. The Mülheim rape case, in Germany’s industrial Ruhr region, requires action by the Youth Welfare Office to address the suspects’ behavioural issues, a senior Child Protection Agency official said. Turkish prosecutors issued arrest warrants for over 200 soldiers for their alleged links to the failed 2016 military coup
According to Istanbul prosecutors, the warrants were issued for 176 active-duty soldiers — including colonels, lieutenants, majors, and captains in Istanbul — and 20 active-duty and five former soldiers as well as 10 civilian suspects in Izmir. The suspects are being sought as part of a probe into Feto infiltration of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), according to sources who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media. The suspects in Izmir are accused of communicating with Feto’s “covert imams” — senior Feto operatives — via pay phone. The 10 civilian suspects in Izmir are accused of using Feto’s encrypted messaging application ByLock. Police have rounded up eight of the suspects so far in simultaneous operations in 20 provinces across Turkey.
———————————————————————————————————————— 9 July 2019 China said “unilateral bullying” by the United States was the cause behind the escalating Iran nuclear crisis
“The facts show that unilateral bullying has already become a worsening tumour,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a press briefing in Beijing. “The maximum pressure exerted by the US on Iran is the root cause of the Iranian nuclear crisis,” he said. Iran threatened on Sunday to abandon more commitments to an endangered 2015 nuclear deal unless a solution is found with the remaining parties after the US pulled out. The 2015 deal was reached between Iran and six world powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, US and Russia — and saw Tehran agree to drastically scale down its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. Amnesty International urges the UN to investigate the ‘systematic’ drug war killings in the Philippines
Amnesty said there is a well-worn pattern of deadly police operations, planted evidence and abductions that start with so-called “watch lists”. Those names are supplied by local officials who are “under immense pressure” from authorities to provide a steady stream of suspects, the London-based monitor said. “Worse still, individuals on watch lists appear to be placed on them indefinitely, with no means of getting delisted, even after they have gone through drug treatment or stopped using drugs,” said the report. Amnesty said it was impossible to determine how many people have been killed in the campaign, accusing Manila of “deliberate obfuscation and misinformation” that has left victims’ kin feeling helpless. The government’s official toll is just over 5,300, but watchdogs say the true number is quadruple that. “What we believe is most important, in assessing the current situation, is the systematic nature of the violations,” Amnesty’s East Asia director Nicholas Bequelin told AFP. A former Congolese rebel leader has been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity
Fighters loyal to Bosco Ntaganda carried out gruesome massacres of civilians, said judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ntaganda, nicknamed “Terminator”, was convicted on 18 counts including murder, rape, sexual slavery and using child soldiers. He becomes the first person convicted of sexual slavery by the ICC. Ntaganda, who will be sentenced at a later hearing, is the fourth person convicted by the ICC since its creation in 2002. He has 30 days to appeal against the convictions. The 46-year-old former rebel has been involved in numerous armed conflicts in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ntaganda surrendered at the US embassy in Rwanda in 2013. Analysts said it was an act of self-preservation, motivated by the danger he was in after losing a power-struggle within his M23 rebel group. A US couple who tried to conceive through IVF has claimed that a mix-up at a California fertility clinic left them pregnant with the wrong children
A lawsuit filed by the couple in New York states that the couple was shocked to give birth to two boys who were not of Asian descent, US media reported. The lawsuit says DNA tests confirmed the children were not related to the couple and they relinquished custody. The fertility clinic has not commented on the allegations. The couple – identified in the lawsuit only as AP and YZ to minimise the “embarrassment and humiliation” – say they tried for years to get pregnant before spending more than $100,000 (£80,000) on the IVF, or in vitro fertilisation, including medication, laboratory fees, travel and other costs. IVF is the process of fertilising an egg outside of the woman’s body, before returning it to the womb to grow and develop.
———————————————————————————————————————— 8 July 2019 Taliban car bomb kills at least 14 hours before a meeting aimed at preparing grounds for peace talks in Afghanistan was to be held
Taliban fighters detonated a car bomb in Ghazni city near an office of Afghanistan’s main intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), during Sunday morning’s rush hour, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying in a statement dozens of NDS officers were killed or wounded. The attack took place as Taliban officials and a selected group of Afghan activists and civil society figures prepared to meet in Doha, casting a pall over talks intended to open the way for full peace negotiations in the future. “It is unfathomable to endanger children in this way and I strongly condemn this attack,” US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in a tweet.
Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has conceded defeat in the country’s snap general election
Centre-right opposition party New Democracy, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, are closing in on a dramatic win. They have 39.7% of the vote so far, with Mr Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party in second place with 31.5%. The current projections would give New Democracy an outright majority, as the winner receives 50 extra seats in parliament. So far about 60% districts have returned their results. Speaking as the results became clear, Mr Tsipras confirmed he had called Mr Mitsotakis to offer him his congratulations. “Today, with our head held high we accept the people’s verdict. To bring Greece to where it is today we had to take difficult decisions (with) a heavy political cost,” Mr Tsipras told journalists. Iran has announced it will break a limit set on uranium enrichment, in breach of the landmark 2015 deal designed to curb its nuclear ambitions
Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran still wanted to salvage the deal but blamed European countries for failing to live up to their own commitments. The US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018. It has since reimposed tight sanctions affecting the Iranian economy. The Iranian announcement marks the latest breach of the accord. In May, Iran announced it would step up its production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make fuel for reactors but also for nuclear weapons. The country has already stockpiled more enriched uranium than permitted under the terms of the deal. Iran has strongly denied that it has any intention of building nuclear weapons. US billionaire Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested on new sex trafficking charges connected to allegations from the early 2000’s
Epstein was arrested in New York and will appear in court on Monday, law enforcement officials told US media. It comes amid renewed controversy over a plea deal he once reached to end a federal investigation against him. His lawyer has not yet commented on the latest charges. Law enforcement officers have not been authorised to discuss the case, but several have spoken to US media outlets on condition of anonymity. One told The Associated Press news agency that the latest charges stemmed from allegations that Epstein paid underage girls for massages and molested them at his New York and Florida homes. Epstein, 66, was previously accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls. The wealthy financier – who was once friendly with Prince Andrew, former US President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump – reached a plea deal to avoid federal sex trafficking charges in the case. Instead, he pleaded guilty in 2008 to lesser state charges of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution. This averted a possible life sentence, and instead saw him spend 13 months in jail and register as a sex offender.
———————————————————————————————————————— 5 July 2019 6.4-magnitude earthquake sets off fires and damages desert city east of Los Angeles
A powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck Southern California near the city of Ridgecrest, about 113 miles (175km) northeast of Los Angeles, the US Geological Survey said on Thursday. The Kern County Fire Department said on Twitter it was working “nearly 2 dozens incidents ranging from medical assistance to structure fires in and around the city of Ridgecrest, CA.” Ridgecrest Mayor Peggy Breedon told CNN that things were falling off buildings and hitting people and the city had felt several aftershocks. She added there were fires and broken gas lines. “We are used to earthquakes but we’re not used to this significance,” she said. The city has asked residents to look after others, especially the elderly, which forms a large part of her city’s population. Dubai’s ruler and his estranged wife head to court in UK
A legal battle between the powerful, poetry-writing ruler of Dubai and his wealthy estranged wife is leading toward a showdown in a London courtroom later this month. The family division court case scheduled on July 30 pits Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum against Princess Haya, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan and an accomplished Olympic equestrian on friendly terms with horse aficionado Queen Elizabeth II. The hearing is expected to focus on who will have custody of their two young children now that the princess has left Dubai. She is believed to be in Britain, where she owns a gated mansion on Buckingham Palace Gardens, a private street lined with some of the world’s most expensive homes and cars. British Royal Marines seized an oil tanker in Gibraltar accused of bringing oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions
The Grace 1 tanker was impounded in the British territory at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea after sailing around Africa from Middle East. Shipping data reviewed by Reuters suggests it had been loaded with Iranian oil off the coast of Iran, although its documents say the oil is from neighboring Iraq. The authorities in Gibraltar made no reference to the source of the oil when they seized it under the authority of European sanctions against Syria that have been in place for years. But the likelihood that the cargo was Iranian drew a link between the incident and a new US effort to halt all global sales of Iranian crude, which Tehran has described as an illegal “economic war” against it. The UN has accused Venezuela of a strategy of instilling fear in its population to retain power, including using death squads
Victims are arrested and shot, with crime scenes manipulated to suggest they resisted police, a report says. The UN urges Venezuela to end the “grave violations of economic, social, civil, political and cultural rights”. Nicolás Maduro’s administration has not yet officially responded to the report. Venezuela has in the past dismissed human rights allegations as “lies”. Mr Maduro is locked in a political battle with opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Mr Guaidó, head of the country’s National Assembly, declared himself interim president in January and has the backing of more than 50 countries, including the US and most of Latin America. Mr Maduro retains the loyalty of most of the military and important allies such as China and Russia. Some four million people have fled Venezuela since 2015, according to the UN, amid a severe economic crisis that has resulted in high unemployment and chronic shortages of food and medicine.
———————————————————————————————————————— 4 July 2019 Boeing is giving $100m to help families affected by the two crashes of the company’s 737 Max planes in Indonesia and Ethiopia
The payment, stretching over several years, is independent of lawsuits filed in the wake of the disasters, which together killed 346 people. The money will support education and living expenses for families and community programmes, Boeing said. Lawyers for victims’ families dismissed the move. The loss of Ethiopian Airlines’ flight ET302 in March was the second fatal accident involving a 737 Max in the space of five months. A near identical aircraft, owned by the Indonesian carrier Lion Air, went down in the sea off Jakarta in October 2018. Crash investigators have focussed on the aircraft’s control system and Boeing has been working with regulators to roll out a software upgrade. The top-selling 737 Max has been grounded worldwide since March, with no date when the aircraft might be cleared to fly again.
‘Supporters’ in Donald Trump Facebook adverts were actors
A series of Facebook adverts showing people endorsing Donald Trump for his re-election campaign appeared to be actors featured on a stock video and image website. One of the short videos posted in June on the social network shows ‘Tracey from Florida’ walking along a beach with a voiceover that says “President Trump is doing a great job, I could not ask for a better President of the United States of America.” But ‘Tracey from Florida’ is an actress, and the clip of her used in the Trump advert is available on the iStock by Getty images website for a fee. Footage of Tracey jogging, working in a warehouse, taking her dog for a walk and even dressed as a doctor are also available. The video’s authenticity was first highlighted in a political newsletter last week by journalist Judd Legum, who wrote: “Trump is not polling well among women in general and young women in particular. So it is running an advertisement on Facebook and Google featuring “Tracey” a young woman who is presented as a big Trump fan.” Rahul Gandhi called serving the Congress Party “an honour” as he resigned as the leader of India’s main opposition party
“I was born a Congressman, this party has always been with me and is my life’s blood and forever that way it shall remain,” said Gandhi at the end of a four-page letter shared on Twitter. Earlier in the day, according to Hindustan Times, Gandhi had told reporters that the party must quickly decide on the new chief and that its top decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), must meet at the earliest to pick a new president. “I have already submitted my resignation and I am no longer the party president,” news agency ANI quoted him as saying. Amsterdam announced options to radically revamp the city’s red light district, including closing down brothels in the city centre
Femke Halsema is seeking to implement the biggest overhaul of the city’s sex trade in two decades. The options include banning sex workers standing in window-fronted rooms. The new proposals are an effort to protect sex workers from gawping tourists and to combat a rise in human trafficking, Ms Halsema said. But there are no plans to outlaw prostitution altogether, she added. “I think a lot of the women who work there feel humiliated, laughed at and that’s one of the reasons we are thinking about changing,” she told Reuters. The four main scenarios are: ending street window displays; closing down city centre brothels and moving them elsewhere; reducing the number of city centre brothels; and stepping up the licensing of window workers. Other plans include an “erotic city zone” with a clear entrance gate.
———————————————————————————————————————— 3 July 2019 China terms Hong Kong protests ‘undisguised challenge’ to its rule
A representative of China’s Hong Kong affairs office denounced the demonstrators, who are furious about proposed legislation allowing extraditions to China, and said Beijing supports holding criminals responsible, state media said. The former British colony of Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, including freedom to protest and an independent judiciary. Monday was the 22nd anniversary of the handover. Beijing denies interfering, but for many Hong Kong residents, the extradition bill is the latest step in a relentless march towards mainland control. Sri Lankan police arrested their top commander and a former defence chief over alleged failures to prevent the Easter Sunday bombings
The arrests came a day after the chief state prosecutor said the alleged negligence of the two senior officials amounted to “grave crimes against humanity”, and they should also face murder charges. Pujith Jayasundara is the most senior police official to be arrested in the 152-year history of the force, which was established by British colonial rulers in 1867. Both Jayasundara and former defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando were undergoing treatment at two separate hospitals when they were taken into custody by plain-clothed officers of the Criminal Investigations Department, Gunasekera said. A Yemeni rebel attack on a civilian airport in southern Saudi Arabia wounded nine civilians
“The terrorist attack on Abha airport… led to the injury of nine civilians, including eight Saudi citizens and one carrying an Indian passport,” the military coalition said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. Earlier, the Houthi rebels said they “launched a wide operation targeting warplanes at Abha international airport” with drones, according to their Al-Masira television channel. The rebels in neighbouring Yemen — who have faced persistent coalition bombing since March 2015 which has exacted a heavy civilian death toll — have stepped up missile and drone attacks across the border in recent weeks. The Dalai Lama says he is “deeply sorry” about comments he made about women in a recent BBC interview
The Tibetan spiritual leader made no apology however for saying that US President Donald Trump had a “lack of moral principle” and “complicated” emotions. “(In) responding to a question about whether his own reincarnation could be a woman, and suggesting that if she were she should be attractive, His Holiness genuinely meant no offence,” the statement said. “He is deeply sorry that people have been hurt by what he said and offers his sincere apologies.” The comments, which attracted criticism around the world, were made in an interview with the British broadcaster aired last week from the Nobel peace prize winner’s exile in Dharamsala in northern India.
———————————————————————————————————————— 2 July 2019 El Salvador’s President has said his co