Known for offering eventgoers a look into the raw military air power of various defensive forces from around the world, the Australian International Air Show in its 2019 iteration also unintentionally gave audiences a peek at how Mother Nature's winged creatures cause major setbacks for aircraft.
Over the weekend, a US Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from California's March Air Reserve Base made an appearance at the air show to demonstrate its capabilities as the US' "most flexible cargo aircraft."
The QX-58 may lead to a whole new class of highly-flexible and affordable unmanned combat air vehicles that could revolutionize how the USAF fights.
Just a week after Boeing unveiled their export-centric 'loyal wingman' combat drone concept, the Air Force Research Lab has announced that their own similar endeavor, dubbed the XQ-58A Valkyrie, has made its first flight. It also posted the very first image of the aircraft that has been developed under a veil of secrecy over the last two and half years.
A press release from the USAF about the aircraft's first flight reads:
The XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator, a long-range, high subsonic unmanned air vehicle completed its inaugural flight March 5, 2019 at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona. The Air Force Research Laboratory partnered with Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems to develop the XQ-58A.
We've been in this nation-wide power cut in Venezuela (biggest proven oil reserves in the world, lest we forget) for 7 hours now. Seven. For most Venezuelans, it's moved from kinda frustrating to genuinely worrying. pic.twitter.com/q7bnKyi48X
Last week, a strange shard of fashion marketing pierced many thousands of bubbles, after Nate Bethea, a journalist and U.S. Army veteran, excavated a thirty-second ad for Grunt Style, a clothing brand pitched at soldiers, sailors, and Marines. The year-old spot—which, embedded in Bethea's tweet, has racked up almost seven hundred thousand views, at this writing—opens with a police officer in riot gear facing a mob of protestors whose signs rage with vaguely anti-hegemonic feeling. The cop is offended by their hoisting of inverted American flags, and he is triggered by the threat that Old Glory will burn.
More than 6,500 civilians have fled Baghouz, the Islamic State (IS) group's final enclave in eastern Syria, since Tuesday. Among them were some 200 IS fighters, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia currently facing down the militant group (AFP)
* Vladimir Putin joined women of the 1st Operational Police Regiment in Moscow * Putin pranced through the training facility on horseback with the women * He gifted them a horse called Golden Ray ahead of International Women's Day * In 2009, the President was famously seen riding a horse topless through Siberia
Vladimir Putin today joined a group of female mounted police officers for a display in horsemanship to mark the upcoming International Women's Day - but unlike his now-famous calendar shoot, he opted to keep his top on.
The President was spotted on a gorgeous chestnut steed surrounded by women in uniform atop white horses at the training facility in Moscow on Thursday.
Putin was famously photographed riding topless through Siberia on holiday in 2009 - snaps which have since been turned into calendars for supporters idolizing the strongman leader.
WNU Editor: He looks nervous. On a side note. It is a big holiday today in Russia and other countries from the former Soviet Union (i.e. International Women's Day).
At least 18 of 23 states reportedly affected by blackout authorities blamed on anti-government saboteurs
Venezuela has been hit by a vast power cut, with at least 18 of its 23 states reportedly affected by a blackout authorities blamed on anti-government saboteurs.
Commuters in the country's crumbling capital, Caracas, were forced to walk home from work after the metro service was paralyzed by the outage, while the international airport was reportedly plunged into darkness.
Millions of citizens from the western state of Zulia to Amazonas in the far south were also reported to have been affected.
Around 1,000 Islamic State fighters have handed themselves in to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) after negotiating their surrender from the last stronghold in Baghouz.
At a clearing ground just outside the battlefield, the ABC spoke to a group of IS fighters who were pleading for medical treatment.
An Egyptian man said the group came out as part of a negotiated surrender.
"They say they have a deal that the injured people have to go to hospital to get care, then everybody will go to jail and we say, 'OK, we are happy to get out of this fight".
WNU Editor: All of the people who are leaving this last enclave are starving and thirsty .... and there are many of them. I could be wrong, but it looks like the U.S. led-coalition decided to use hunger and the need for water to force a surrender from the last fighters and their families. Why launch an attack when starvation and thirst are more effective weapons, and all that you need is time to work its course. And by the look on the thousands who have surrendered in the past few days, it has worked.
More News On The Islamic State's "Last Stand" In Syria
Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after briefing members of the U.S. Senate on his investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2017. Joshua Roberts, Reuters.
How Mueller's probe compares with the work of other special counsels.
Nearly two years after special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, he appears to be nearing the end of his work. We don't know what new information we'll gain from Mueller's report, but here's how his investigation currently stacks up to other special counsel investigations:
"Little Rocket Man" may be living up to his Trump-given nickname.
North Korea is rebuilding a satellite launch site it promised to entirely dismantle, and may have increased activity at a major missile factory — both actions that are likely meant to be warning signs to the United States and South Korea.
Should these moves be a precursor to even more aggressive actions by Pyongyang, or anger President Donald Trump, then the US and North Korea could end up moving away from diplomacy and back on the path to war.
WNU Editor: The above post gives a good explanation on why we should not be worried on what is happening at this North Korean missile site. What's my take. If it only involves maintaining the place, fixing what needs to be fixed, etc. .... I say big deal. But if it involves more than that, it sends a terrible message to those who are hoping that North Korea is serious about denuclearization. And while I do not believe President Trump will not be politically damaged if North Korea resumes missile tests (he tried but it did not work out), it will be politically devastating to South Korean President Moon who banked all of his political capital to enter into talks with the North Korean leader. My hope is that Kim Jong-un knows that, and he will not risk undermining a South Korean leader who is serious in establishing better ties with his government, and to back it with major aid and concessions. But North Korea is North Korea .... anything is possible.
It has been a tense time for nuke-watchers in Asia. Just as the phantom hopes of a denuclearization agreement on the Korean Peninsula were being dashed in Vietnam, a very real escalation was taking place in South Asia between nuclear rivals — and neighbors — India and Pakistan.
After getting as close to a real nuclear conflagration as we probably have since the Cuban missile crisis, the good news is that tensions in South Asia now seem to be in de-escalation mode. This, of course, is a good thing. But this conflict most certainly will leave the world less safe than it was before. If the Doomsday Clock has not been reset yet, it should.
The top US general overseeing military operations in the Middle East warned Thursday that despite the terror group's territorial losses the fight against ISIS is "far from over," cautioning that the remnants of the group are positioning themselves for a potential resurgence.
"Reduction of the physical caliphate is a monumental military accomplishment but the fight against ISIS and violent extremism is far from over," Gen. Joseph Votel the commander of US Central Command told the House Armed Services Committee.
Votel acknowledged that the terror group's territory had shrunk from some 34,000 square miles at the height of its power to an area that is currently less than a single square mile in the Syrian town of Baghouz.
But he cautioned that many ISIS fighters have left these last pockets and have dispersed across Syria and Iraq.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country is determined to go through with a deal to purchase S-400 missile-defense systems from Russia, despite opposition from Washington.
"As for the S-400, the deal is done, and it is out of the question to go backwards...and perhaps after the S-400, we will move onto the S-500," Erdogan told Kanal-24 television on March 6.
The U.S. State Department on March 5 again warned Turkey about going ahead with the purchase of the Russian air-defense system, adding that Washington might reconsider giving Ankara access to the advanced F-35 fighter jet program if it buys the Russian S-400 system
* $104 Billion research plan would boost space, hypersonics * Fiscal 2020 request is $9 billion more than current year
The Pentagon will request a research and development budget of $104 billion, the biggest in the department's history, boosting spending in space and for hypersonic weapons, according to defense officials.
The record request to be included in President Donald Trump's proposed fiscal 2020 budget on March 11 is about $9 billion more than Congress appropriated for R&D in the current fiscal year. President Trump Attends Missile Defense Review Announcement At Pentagon
Patrick Shanahan Photographer: Martin H. Simon/Pool via Bloomberg
"Look at things like" hypersonic weapons that can travel as fast as five times the speed of sound or "what we're going to go do in space," Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said in an interview last week with Bloomberg News. "I think you'll see much bigger dollars in space."
While Shanahan, a former Boeing Co. executive, declined to discuss the budget specifics, other defense officials confirmed the increase from the $88 billion that had been projected for fiscal 2020 in budget documents last year.
U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, commander, U.S. Central Command, briefs the media at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S. April 29, 2016 . REUTERS/YURI GRIPAS
Votel says mission to defeat ISIL is 'driving the withdrawal' and 'main focus is making sure we protect our forces'.
The general overseeing US forces in the Middle East said on Thursday that he was under no pressure to withdraw forces from Syria by any specific date, after President Donald Trump ordered the pull-out of most US troops from Syria.
"What is driving the withdrawal of course is our mission, which is the defeat of ISIS and so that is our principal focus and that is making sure that we protect our forces, that we don't withdraw in a manner that increases the risk to our forces," Joseph Votel, head of the US Central Command, said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.
WNU Editor: Even though there is no fixed withdrawal date, in the end what can 400 U.S. soldiers in Syria really do .... 400 American Troops Can't Do Anything (Foreign Policy)
The top US general overseeing military operations in the Middle East warned Thursday that despite the terror group's territorial losses the fight against ISIS is "far from over," cautioning that the remnants of the group are positioning themselves for a potential resurgence.
"Reduction of the physical caliphate is a monumental military accomplishment but the fight against ISIS and violent extremism is far from over," Gen. Joseph Votel the commander of US Central Command told the House Armed Services Committee.
Votel acknowledged that the terror group's territory had shrunk from some 34,000 square miles at the height of its power to an area that is currently less than a single square mile in the Syrian town of Baghouz.
But he cautioned that many ISIS fighters have left these last pockets and have dispersed across Syria and Iraq.
"Political conditions" in Afghanistan do not merit a U.S. military withdrawal right now, the top U.S. general in the region said Thursday.
"The political conditions, where we are in the reconciliation right now don't merit that," Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel told the House Armed Services Committee.
Votel's testimony to the committee comes as the Trump administration's special envoy for Afghanistan negotiations, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been ramping up efforts to reach a peace deal with the Taliban in the 18-year-old war.
Increased military ties between Taipei and Washington seen to irk Beijing
TAIPEI -- Taiwan has asked the U.S. to sell F-16 fighter jets, the Ministry of National Defense said on Wednesday night. The news could trigger a protest from Beijing, which positions Taiwan as its "core interest."
Taiwan media reported that the island will buy 66 F-16V jets. Following the reports, the ministry issued a statement saying that it had conveyed to the U.S. through diplomatic channels that it would need to buy new fighter jets to beef up its air defenses.
China has stepped up its military pressure on Taiwan since 2017, with its military flying missions around the island.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy dispatched two vessels in February to the Taiwan Strait to counter China's maritime expansion in the region.
Comoros President Azali Assoumani survived an attempt on his life on Thursday as he crisscrossed the country drumming up support ahead of polls on March 24, his campaign director said.
But the opposition insisted the incident on Anjouan island, which Azali's team said left the president unscathed, was "not at all credible".
Tensions are high on the Indian Ocean archipelago after a brief armed insurrection on Anjouan island last year, and Azali's victory in a controversial referendum that could keep him in power until 2029.
The video was released after the Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that a Su-27 fighter jet on air defence duty had been scrambled "to identify the origin of the target and intercept it".
The Russian Defence Ministry has published a short video of a Su-27 fighter intercepting an American RC-135 spy plane over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea near the Russian border.
The footage, which was captured from the Su-27's cockpit, shows the super-manoeuvrable Russian warplane safely approaching from behind and chasing the US reconnaissance plane. The exact time of the interception was not revealed.
* Conditions inside Baghouz were described as 'catastrophic' by one fleeing bride * More than 7,000 - mostly women and children - have fled in the last two days * A few hundred ISIS fighters remain as they seek to be martyred on the final field * US-backed Kurdish militia, the SDF, are to resumed their ferocious siege today
Jihadi brides fleeing the last remnants of the ISIS 'caliphate' say they have left behind a 'catastrophic' hell, as the evacuation of civilians will be halted today ahead of a final battle.
One woman described how the town of Baghouz in eastern Syria was subjected to constant bombings and fires, saying: 'you would wake up and everything was destroyed.'
More than 7,000 - mostly women and children, as well as some suspected ISIS fighters - have been packed out of the town in the last two days.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say they will resume their ferocious siege on the last few hundred jihadists today after helping people to surrender.
Pakistan on Thursday opened its airspace for countries such Iran, Oman and China but not for India in a clear indication that underlying tension between the two countries are yet to fully dissipate.
New Delhi (Sputnik) — Even as the international community makes diplomatic efforts to facilitate the de-escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan that erupted in mid-February, the two South Asian neighbours on Thursday claimed that they are both maintaining optimum preparedness to thwart any kind of aggression from one another.
"A strict vigil in the skies to detect and thwart any act of aggression from Pakistan Air Force is being maintained," a statement issued by the Indian Air Force on Thursday reads.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday addressed for the first time the corruption scandal that threatens to bring down his administration, saying there was a breakdown in trust and communication with his former justice minister – but he stopped short of an apology.
"I was not aware of that erosion of trust, and as prime minister and head of cabinet, I should have been," Trudeau said during a news conference in Ottawa. "Ultimately, I believe our government will be stronger for having wrestled with these issues."
This was the first time Trudeau addressed the brewing scandal and allegations that he and his administration pressured Jody Wilson-Raybould to not to take action against a powerful Canadian engineering company in a case involving allegations of corruption in Libya.
WNU Editor: In a nutshell. The Prime Minister is basically calling his former cabinet minister who is accusing him of interfering in a criminal case a liar. The problem for the Prime Minister is that most Canadians believe the former minister, and not him. So what is my take. When his former minister testified, she had detailed notes, records of emails and phone calls, and witnesses who could back her up. She was and is a very credible witness, but who is still under legal restrictions on what she can talk about. On the opposite side. Not much detail, but a lot of denials or admissions that they do not remember. And as for this morning's news conference. There was suppose to be a 'contrition statement' from the Prime Minister, but there was no real contrition. What I saw was someone who looked very stubborn and uncompromising. And while that approach may work for other leaders in other countries, Canadians are different breed. They/I do not like to see that.
More News On Today's News Conference By Canadian PM Trudeau
Russia's State Duma has approved legislation that would block websites that publish what the authorities deem to be "fake news" and penalizing websites that "insult" authorities, state symbols, and what the legislation vaguely describes as Russian "society."
To become law, the bills must still be approved by the parliament's upper chamber, the Federation Council, and signed by President Vladimir Putin.
Critics of the legislation say it would empower state officials to shut down websites that are critical of the Kremlin or other Russian authorities.
In the March 7 vote by the State Duma, 322 lawmakers supported the bill on banning so-called "fake news" and 78 voted against it.
WNU Editor: The problem with this law is that if it is enforced on an individual level, 90% of the country will need to be locked-up (including yours truly). So why pass the law? A lot of Russian political websites are exposing corruption among many of the same law makers who passed this law. They want to shut them down. My prediction .... they will fail.
It's been said that there are no atheists in foxholes, but a new study led by Joseph Henrich has shown that the impact of war on religion extends well beyond the front lines.
The chair of the Department of Human and Evolutionary Biology, Henrich and a team of international collaborators gathered survey data from several locations around the globe and found that, following the trauma of seeing a friend or loved one killed or injured during conflict, many became more religious. The study is described in a Jan. 28 paper published in Nature Human Behavior.
"I became interested in this question through my prior work, which has been focused on how religious beliefs can cause people to cooperate more in a group," Henrich said. "The idea is that if you can expand the sphere of cooperation, then that group can more successfully compete against others, sometimes even through violent conflict.
WNU Editor: My father fought for almost four years on the Russian front for the Soviet Union during the Second World War, and he was never religious. Two of my cousins fought for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s, and they are very religious. I guess it all comes down to who and what the person is.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY is celebrated on March 8 each year, as a focal point for the championing of women's rights and gender equality. So what is the history of the day?
US special representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams has confessed the US will not follow through with their military threats in an attempt to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
FEARS North Korea may have resumed testing nuclear weapons were ignited after a 2.1 magnitude earthquake was detected yesterday, which was reportedly caused by an artificial underground explosion.
(±±SEOUL, South Korea) — South Korea and the United States on Friday signed a deal that would increase Seoul’s financial contribution for the deployment of U.S. troops in the Asian country.
After rounds of failed negotiations, chief delegates from the two countries last month agreed on Seoul paying about 1.04 trillion won ($924 million) in 2019 for the U.S. military presence, up from about $830 million last year.
President Donald Trump earlier pressured Seoul to increase its share, triggering worries in South Korea that he might withdraw some of the 28,500 U.S. troops here if Seoul refused to accept his demand.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris signed the new cost-sharing deal on Friday.
Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement the deal is expected to provide a “stable environment” for the U.S. troop deployment and help strengthen the alliance between the two countries.
The deal, which involves the spending of South Korean taxpayer money, requires parliamentary approval in South Korea, but not in the United States. The deal will likely easily pass through South Korea’s parliament as the main conservative opposition party highly values a stronger alliance with the United States.
The deal’s signing came days after the two countries eliminated their huge springtime military drills and replaced them with a smaller training to back diplomatic efforts to strip North Korea of its nuclear weapons. Many experts in South Korea said the moves would likely weaken the allies’ military readiness in the event that the diplomacy fails and tensions with North Korea flares again.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has offered to return to North Korea to help restart negotiations on denuclearization, as progress has come to a standstill between Pyongyang and the administration of President Donald Trump.
Carter, now 94 years old, told U.S. Representative Ro Khanna at a meeting in Atlanta on Thursday that although he no longer travels, he would be willing to go to North Korea if Trump wanted his help, Politico reports.
Khanna also said that the meeting with Carter inspired him to get involved in North Korea negotiations himself, pledging to update a denuclearization strategy that Carter initially drew up with Kim Il Sung, the country’s first leader and the grandfather of Kim Jong Un.
Carter, who served as the 39th U.S. president, visited North Korea in 1994 to meet Kim Il Sung toward facilitating negotiations with the Clinton administration at a time when tensions were high between Pyongyang and Washington.
It’s not the first time Carter has offered to help the Trump administration manage the delicate issue. In 2017, he told Trump’s then-National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster that he was willing to take the lead on negotiations.
Talks between President Trump and Kim Jung Un collapsed in late February as the two leaders failed to reach an agreement at their second summit held in Hanoi.
Analysts say Pyongyang appears to be ramping up activity at a factory where missiles were produced, as well as rebuilding part of a launch site it had earlier promised to dismantle.
(TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico) — Authorities in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas say at least 25 Central American migrants have died when the truck they were traveling in overturned.
The Chiapas state prosecutor’s office said in a statement late Thursday that 29 others were injured in the accident. It appears the driver lost control of the truck around 6 p.m. near the town of Francisco Sarabia in the municipality of Soyalo.
The injured were transported to hospitals. Authorities did not provide the nationalities of the victims, and say the investigation continues.
Chiapas is the historic entry point for Central American migrants arriving in Mexico from Guatemala. The normal migratory flow has attracted additional attention will the arrival of several large migrant caravans from Central America during the past year.
It was more than 60 years ago when a pod of unusual-looking killer whales washed up on a New Zealand beach. With their snubbed noses and pointy fins, scientists had a hunch that these were no ordinary orcas.
New research carried out in parts of the ocean off Chile may present viable proof that the animals are a distinct, never-before-discovered species of killer whales, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Bob Pitman, a researcher for NOAA, led the three-week expedition in Cape Horn, near the southern tip of Chile. There had earlier been reports that strange-looking orcas residing in those waters had been snatching the catch from fishermen.
During a three-hour window that came after eight days of bad weather hampering their voyage, Pitman and his crew found themselves surrounded by about 30 killer whales that were distinctly different from the orca family they were used to studying. Underwater images captured from wide-angle cameras revealed unique color patterns and body shape. They had rounder heads, shorter noses and narrower, pointier fins, and the white patches around their eyes were smaller than those of other killer whales.
By carefully shooting harmless crossbow darts towards the whales, which approached the vessel many times, the team was able to collect tiny skin samples for analysis.
The animals have been termed “Type D whales”, adding to a list of three types of whales confirmed to be residing in the Southern Hemisphere, according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
“We are very excited about the genetic analyses to come. Type D killer whales could be the largest undescribed animal left on the planet and a clear indication of how little we know about life in our oceans,” Pitman said.
The biopsy samples have been brought to the laboratory, where scientists will analyze DNA from their skin over the next few months.
“These samples hold the key to determining whether this form of killer whale represents a distinct species,” Pitman added.
Thousands of civilians could still be inside the Islamic State’s last stronghold in eastern Syria, as ripples of evacuees exit the area ahead of plans by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for a final assault.
Reuters reports that the SDF has said it will wait for all civilians to be evacuated from Baghouz, near Syria’s border with Iraq, before advancing on the Islamic State’s last populated territory.
“We are still hearing about the presence of thousands inside Baghouz,” SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali told al-Hadath television, according to Reuters.
“We expect a fierce battle later on after the end of the civilian evacuation, given that those that will remain in Baghouz are the ones brimming with salafi jihadi ideology and the ones for whom surrender is not an option,” he added.
SDF commander Adnan Afrin said Thursday he hoped the evacuations would “be completed today.”
Families of Islamic State fighters, hundreds of whom have surrendered, have been leaving Baghouz in recent weeks, according to the SDF. Nearly 20,000 have walked for hours through a humanitarian corridor to exit, with some paying smugglers to help them evacuate.
The Islamic State group has lost roughly 99% of its territory that was spread across much of Syria and Iraq at its height in 2014.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said that ISIS is no longer a threat, declaring in a Dec. 19 video shared on Twitter that “we have won” and that ISIS “has been defeated” shortly after announcing that the U.S. would withdraw its 2,000 troops from Syria.
Security experts said, however, that the group still posed a threat due to its control over slices of remote territory and its ability to launch guerrilla attacks. A February report published by the Department of Defense Inspector General said that according to the U.S. Central Command, ISIS “could likely resurge in Syria within six to twelve months” in the absence of sustained pressure.
The Trump administration announced at the end of February that it would keep 200 U.S. troops in Syria following criticism.
U.K. Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt announced Thursday that a British-Iranian aid worker being detained in Iran will receive diplomatic protection.
The rare move is unlikely to be a “magic wand,” Hunt said, but it formally recognizes that the U.K. government views her treatment as unjust and illegal.
“This represents a formal recognition by the British Government that her treatment fails to meet Iran’s obligations under international law and elevates it to a formal state-to-state issue,” Hunt said in a video statement shared on Twitter.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained while she was with her young daughter after visiting family in Iran in April 2016, Reuters reports.
She was sentenced to five years in jail for allegedly plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment, according to Reuters. Her family has denied the charges.
Hunt said that he decided to take the “extremely unusual” step of granting a citizen diplomatic protection because of the “unacceptable treatment” of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who he called “an innocent woman.”
The Iranian government has failed to provide her sufficient medical care or the right of due process, he added. According to Reuters, Zaghari-Ratcliffe began a hunger strike earlier this year to protest her treatment.
“The U.K. will not stand by when one of its citizens is treated so unjustly,” said Hunt.
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises on its website there is “a risk that British nationals, and a higher risk that British/Iranian dual nationals, could be arbitrarily detained in Iran.”
Iran has detained scores of Iranian dual-national foreign citizens in recent years. The arrests, which appear to be politically motivated, include academics, businessmen and journalists
(SEOUL, South Korea) — U.S. analysts say North Korea appears to have restored normal operations at a long-range rocket launch site it partially dismantled last year as part of disarmament steps.
Some experts say North Korea is trying to convey displeasure over the breakdown of a summit last week between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump over what the Americans said were Kim’s excessive demands for sanctions relief.
North Korea-focused website 38 North said Thursday that commercial satellite images from March 6 indicate that the launch site appears to have returned to “normal operational status” following rapid construction to rebuild a launch pad and a rocket engine test stand.
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies published similar findings Thursday and said the North’s actions amount to a “snapback” from the moderate dismantlement it undertook following the first Trump-Kim summit last June.
“The rebuilding activities at Sohae demonstrate how quickly North Korea can easily render reversible any steps taken toward scrapping its WMD program with little hesitation,” the CSIS said in a study authored by Joseph Bermudez and Victor Cha. “This poses challenges for the U.S. goal of final, irreversible and verifiable denuclearization.”
Trump said Thursday that he’s a “little disappointed” by the reports of the new North Korean activity and that time will tell if U.S. diplomacy with the reclusive country will be successful.
The Sohae satellite launching center in Tongchang-ri, a seaside region in western North Korea, is where the North carried out satellite launches in recent years, resulting in U.N. sanctions over claims that they were disguised tests of banned missile technology.
Some experts see the North as trying to put pressure on Washington and Seoul, which has acted as a mediator, to make a deal by creating an impression that it could resume missile or rocket tests.
South Korea’s spy agency has also told lawmakers in a closed-door intelligence briefing that increased vehicle movement was detected at a missile research center on the outskirts of Pyongyang where the North is believed to build long-range missiles targeting the U.S. mainland.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that it is carefully monitoring North Korean nuclear and missile facilities and that the U.S. and South Korean militaries were closely coordinating intelligence over the developments at Tongchang-ri and the missile research center.
Moon Seong Mook, an analyst for the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said it’s unlikely that North Korea will resume major missile tests or satellite launches anytime soon because that would risk destroying its fragile negotiations with Washington and could bring even harsher sanctions on its crippled economy.
He said North Korea will also want to see if South Korea will support its position more strongly. Undeterred by the breakdown of the Trump-Kim summit, South Korea has continued to urge the United States to ease sanctions on North Korea to allow a resumption of inter-Korean economic projects and encourage more disarmament steps from the North.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has said it was Seoul’s “outmost priority” to prevent nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang from derailing, nominated a dovish scholar as his new point-man on North Korea on Friday in an apparent effort to push further his engagement policy with the North.
Kim Yeonchul, currently the head of the state-funded Korea Institute for National Unification, has been an outspoken supporter of inter-Korean rapprochement. The presidential Blue House described Kim as a leading expert in “inter-Korean economic cooperation and the North Korean nuclear problem.”
Analyzing commercial satellite images from March 6, the CSIS report assessed that the North had completed rebuilding the superstructure and covering of the rocket engine test stand at the launch site. Additional work at the stand, such as the construction of a shelter on the entrance ramp, could indicate preparations to test rocket engines again, it said.
The 38 North study said the North appears to have also finished rebuilding a rail-mounted transfer structure at the launch pad and that the structure may now be operational. The structure is used to move rocket stages from an underground transfer point to a processing building and from the processing building to the launch tower, according to CSIS, which provided a similar account on the developments.
Satellite images taken weeks after the first Trump-Kim summit had shown the North was taking steps to dismantle the rocket engine test stand and the rail-mounted transfer structure at the launch pad.
(SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador) — El Salvador’s Supreme Court on Thursday commuted the 30-year sentences of three women imprisoned for abortion convictions, lessening their punishment to time served and ordering them released immediately.
The three women had spent about 10 years in prison on aggravated homicide charges for allegedly having abortions. All claimed they had miscarriages.
The court found that the women were victims of social and economic circumstances and ruled that the original sentences were unreasonable.
“In all three cases, the court recognized that the women have had adverse social, economic and family situations, and the sentences were disproportionate and immoral,” said the Foundation for Research on the Application of the Law.
Upon being released from the women’s prison in the capital, Alba Lorena Rodriguez, 31, said, “We hope the government will recognize that a lot of women in here are innocent, and God willing, they will be freed.”
An additional 18 women remain behind bars for abortion convictions in El Salvador, where abortion is illegal in all situations.
Cinthia Marcela Rodriguez, 30, had no medical insurance when she was arrested in 2008 after what she said was a miscarriage. The court commuted her sentence “for reasons of equity and justice, based on her economic, social and personal situation.”
“Justice is slow,” Rodriguez told a crowd of supporters as she left prison. “Keep fighting for the 18 who remain inside.”
The Citizen’s Group for Decriminalizing Abortion said the high court’s rulings “set a judicial precedent to review the situations of other women who remain in prison.”
In February, the court overturned another woman’s 30-year abortion sentence, ordering a new trial for her.
(CARACAS, Venezuela) — Much of Venezuela plunged into darkness Thursday evening, creating chaos as people struggled to navigate their way home amid what appeared to be one of the biggest blackouts yet in a country where power failures have become common.
Commuters took to the sidewalks in Caracas after subway service stopped and a snarl of cars jammed the streets with stoplights out.
State-owned electricity operator Corpoelec blamed the outage on what it called an “attack” on the Guri Dam, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric stations and the cornerstone of Venezuela’s electrical grid.
“We’ve been targeted again in the power war,” Maj. Gen. Luis Motta, President Nicolas Maduro’s minister of electrical power, said on state television.
Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez called the blackout a criminal act by right-wing extremists intent on creating chaos by leaving Venezuelans without power for several days. He said Maduro’s government had defeated the “sabotage” and already restored power in the country’s eastern region.
Pro-government officials frequently blame power outages on Venezuela’s opposition, accusing them of attacking power substations with Molotov cocktails, though they rarely provide any evidence.
Officials did not indicate how much of Venezuela had lost power, though local media said nearly all of the country had been blacked out.
Motto said it would take “approximately three hours” for service to be fully restored, though patience was running thin as the blackout dragged on.
In one Caracas neighborhood, residents threw up their windows and began banging on pots and pans in a sign of protest while others shouted out expletives and Maduro’s name.
The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a political struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by about 50 nations as Venezuela’s rightful president.
The opposition blames Maduro’s socialist policies for Venezuela’s hyperinflation and severe shortages of food and medicine. Maduro accuses Guaido of conspiring with the Trump administration in a campaign to overthrow him.
Guaido took to Twitter Tuesday evening to blast Maduro for the outage.
“How do you tell a mom who needs to cook, an ill person who depends on a machine, a worker who should be laboring that we are in a powerful country without electricity?” he wrote, using the hashtag #SinLuz, meaning without light. “Venezuela is clear that the light will return with the end of usurpation.”
Venezuela’s electrical system was once the envy of Latin America but it has fallen into a state of disrepair after years of poor maintenance and mismanagement. High-ranking officials have been accused in U.S. court proceedings of looting government money earmarked for the electrical system.
The government subsidizes the electricity system’s costs to keep home power bills exceptionally low — just a couple dollars a month.
Friday is International Women’s Day, and even Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex is taking some time to mark the occasion by appearing on a panel alongside notable figures in England like Annie Lennox and Adwoa Aboah hosted by King’s College London.
This is not the first time Markle has celebrated the annual event with a high-profile engagement; back in 2015, she delivered a speech at the U.N. Women conference about gender and equality. “Women need a seat at the table. They need an invitation to be seated there, and in some cases, where this is not available, well then… they need to create their own table,” she said then.
So Markle’s interest in women’s causes is no surprise, as many royal watchers and longtime Markle fans will already know. And it’s not necessarily a huge departure from the humanitarian work that others in the family like Prince Charles and Prince Harry have long taken on themselves.
It is still significant when royals get political, however, because of the Queen’s impartial relationship to party politics. “You’ve got to be very careful in terms of how anything reflects on the Queen,” explains CNN royals commentator Victoria Arbiter to TIME. “She’s a politically neutral head of state. And the family is very careful in terms of where they go, because they can’t cause her any embarrassment.”
This need for caution has been in place ever since the United Kingdom became a constitutional monarchy and reduced royal political powers in 1688. The reigning monarch is still technically responsible for a whole list of tasks, from appointing prime ministers to summoning and dissolving Parliament, and still holds the power to declare war and make peace.
But the stability of the U.K. government is based on the fact that the monarch has remained politically neutral as head of state in the intervening centuries. That’s certainly the case for Queen Elizabeth II, who has now been the U.K.’s longest-reigning monarch at 92.
That doesn’t mean other royals don’t dabble, however — as they are within their rights to do. “The royals have long gone as close as they possibly can [to politics],” says Arbiter, “but they limit it to the humanitarian side instead of the political side.” That means steering clear of taking a firm stance on a party issue like Brexit, for instance — although “in a roundabout way the Queen has talked about Brexit herself,” Arbiter noted, as when she made what people perceived as veiled references in a speech this year.
As for the Duchess of Sussex? “It’s not as if Markle appears to be inserting herself where it’s something not appropriate for her to comment on,” says author Leslie Carroll, who writes books of royal history and intrigue. “The fact that she’s an outspoken advocate for women’s issues — as she always has been — isn’t surprising.” Markle has publicly declared herself a feminist and supported menstrual products for girls in India; she also made headlines as Duchess of Sussex when she was seemingly drawn into the Irish abortion debate.
Her general work for women, it seems, has the stamp of approval of the Queen herself: Markle was recently made patron of Smart Works, a charity that supports unemployed women in their search for jobs, which “demonstrates the Queen’s trust in Meghan,” Carroll suggests.
The other royals have all had their own causes, too. Prince William has long been focused on conservation and wildlife preservation. Prince Harry has been particularly engaged in mental health awareness programs and vocally concerned about climate change. Princess Diana, soon after her divorce, worked to de-stigmatize AIDS and draw attention to the landmine crisis in places like Angola, which got her called out by politicians for interfering in what they saw as a political issue.
And Prince Charles, who was “preaching the horrors of plastics for decades” as an environmental supporter according to Arbiter, has courted controversy when he toed close to the political line by opting to write memos to make his case on policies. (The memos weren’t unearthed until years later.)
“William and Kate tread a finer line because they’re going to be king and queen eventually, so they have to be a little bit more beige,” explains Carroll of Harry’s brother and sister-in-law. Markle, meanwhile, is not part of the official royal line of succession, giving her a little more leeway.
As for women’s issues in particular, both Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Sophie, Countess of Wessex have supported women’s causes: Camilla has worked on providing support for victims of sexual abuse, while Sophie is chair of a women’s business cause and supports anti-sexual violence initiatives. “Meghan by extension is continuing that,” says Arbiter. Markle will also have the full guidance of a royal team to make sure that her rhetoric stays within the bounds of palace protocol, Arbiter and Carroll agree.
All eyes may be on Markle as she takes the stage this International Women’s Day, but her support of women is actually nothing new — or all that political — for the crown. “It is a fine line, but one she’s traversed well so far, and one that she’ll be very prepared for come Friday,” Arbiter says.
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At the Multi Commodity Exchange, copper to be delivered in March eased by Rs 3.20, or 0.7 per cent, to Rs 450.90 per kg with a business turnover of 14,663 lots.
The breadth of the market favoured the declines with 714 stocks advancing and 964 declining while 395 remained unchanged. On the BSE, 1050 stocks advanced, 1288 declined and 132 remained unchanged.
One of the innovations of the KFC lab is little colonel locator, which customers can use to find anyone or anything that’s wearing the necktie -- as long as they#39;re within 100 feet of their smartphone.
Silver for delivery in May traded higher by Rs 120, or 0.32 percent, at Rs 38,184 per kg in a business turnover of 19,695 lots at the Multi Commodity Exchange.
The report highlights that 52 percent of the AUM, managed by women fund managers, outperformed the benchmark/peer group average over one year basis.
Crude oil for delivery in March was trading lower by Rs 36, or 0.9 per cent, at Rs 3,946 per barrel with a business volume of 14,634 lots at the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX).
The two companies may submit the bids today
Jet Airways on Thursday said another three aircraft had been grounded due to its failure to make payments, taking the total number to 28, but it has not specified the lessors involved.
A two-member bench, headed by Justice S J Mukhopadhaya, also pulled Liberty House for not pursuing the corporate insolvency resolution process after being selected as the highest bidder.
At the Multi Commodity Exchange, gold to be delivered in April rose by Rs 122, or 0.38 percent, to trade at Rs 32,056 per 10 gram in a business turnover of 89 lots.
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