Six people were injured Saturday when lightning struck a 60-foot pine at the Tour Championship where they were taking cover from rain and showered them with debris, Atlanta police said.
A pine tree is stripped of bark after being hit by lightning at East Lake Golf Club during the third round of the Tour Championship golf tournament, Aug. 24, 2019, in Atlanta.
The third round of the season-ending PGA Tour event at East Lake Golf Club had been suspended for about 30 minutes because of storms in the area, and fans were instructed to seek shelter. The strike hit the top of the tree just off the 16th tee and shattered the bark all the way to the bottom.
Ambulances streamed into the private club about 6 miles east of downtown Atlanta. The players already had been taken into the clubhouse before the lightning hit.
Brad Uhl of Atlanta was among those crammed under a hospital tent to the right of the 16th hole that was open to the public.
“There was just a big explosion and then an aftershock so strong you could feel the wind from it,” Uhl said after the last of the ambulances pulled out of the golf course. “It was just a flash out of the corner of the eye.”
Atlanta police spokesman James H. White III said five men and one female juvenile were injured in the lightning strike. He said they were taken to hospitals for further treatment, all of them alert, conscious and breathing.
The PGA Tour canceled the rest of golf Saturday, with the round to resume at 8 a.m. Sunday, followed by the final round.
Last week at the BMW Championship in the Chicago suburbs, Phil Mickelson was delayed getting to the golf course when lightning struck the top of his hotel, causing a precautionary evacuation.
When a “Himalayan tsunami” roars down from the rooftop of the world, water from an overflowing glacial lake obeys gravity. Obliterating everything in its path, a burst is predictable only in its destructiveness.
“There was no meaning in it,” one person who withstood the waters in India’s Himalayas told a Public Radio International reporter. “It didn’t give anyone a chance to survive.”
Christian Huggel, a professor at the University of Zurich in Switzerland who specializes in glaciology and geomorphodynamics (the study of changing forms of geologic surfaces), said thousands of cubic meters of water moving down a mountain “is really quite destructive and it can happen suddenly.”
That water comes from glacial lake outburst floods, or GLOFs, which are increasing in frequency as climate change increases the rate of glacial melting. This catastrophic lake drainage occurs wherever there are glaciers in places such as Peru and Alaska.
The most devastating GLOFs occur in the Himalayan regions of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal and the Tibetan Plateau. When combined, the area has the third-largest accumulation of snow and ice after Antarctica and the Arctic.
Melting glaciers
In the Himalayas, climate change melted glaciers by a vertical foot and half of ice each year from 2000 to 2016, according to a study released in June’s Science Advances by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.
That is twice the rate of melting from 1975 to 2000.
Local people have noticed the change. In a 2016 interview from the Everest basecamp, Dr. Nima Namgyal Sherpa told VOA that in the past, the glacial streams in the mid-Everest region started flowing in May, but the Sherpas now see the flow beginning in April.
That melted snowpack seeps down to fill mountainside indentations to form glacial lakes. As global warming accelerates the melting, the lakes are expanding, as is their number and threat, monitored in some areas with automated sensors and manual early warning systems by army and police personnel with communication gear.
“Bigger lakes may increase the risk of catastrophic dam failure,” Joseph Shea, a glacier hydrologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, told the magazine Science.
The retreating ice of the Pastoruri glacier is seen in the Huascaran National Park in Huaraz, Peru, Aug. 12, 2016. The melting of glaciers has put cities like Huaraz at risk of what scientists call a “glof,” or glacial lake outburst flood.
Today, there are more than a thousand glacial lakes on the Tibetan Plateau, with more than 130 larger than 0.1 square kilometer in Nepal alone. The lakes threaten the livelihoods and lives of tens of thousands of people who live in some of the world’s most remote areas.
On June 12, 2016, a GLOF near Mount Everest sent 2 million cubic meters of water toward the Nepalese village of Chukhung, which lost just one outhouse to the torrents, in part because scientists warned residents in the area about the approaching danger.
Weeks later, on July 5, a GLOF near the village of Chaku registered on seismometers, which had been installed after an earthquake the year before, as a “huge pulse of energy,” Kristen Cook, a geologist at the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, told EOS, an online site that covers earth and space science news.
Examining satellite images, Cook and her colleagues found the GLOF moved boulders as large as 6 meters in diameter.
Early warning systems
This year, on July 7, a GLOF early warning system of weather monitoring stations and river discharge sensors saved lives in Pakistan’s Golain Valley, which has more than 50 glaciers and nine glacial lakes.
“Our standing crops [and] apple and apricot orchards have been completely destroyed,” Safdar Ali, whose shop was heavily damaged as the water swept away livestock, stored grain, irrigation channels and micro hydropower plants, told Reuters.
“I see no loss of human life this time as a positive,” Amanullah Khan, assistant country director for the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) told Reuters. “It shows our training has been a success.”
The UNDP program, which helped establish flood protection systems in the area starting in 2011, has installed small-scale drainage systems and mini-dams, and taught people in the remote region survival skills, such as simple first aid, because the arrival of skilled emergency help can be delayed by the rugged topography.
Local governments are taking preventive measures, such as removing loose rocks and debris that make the bursts of water even more destructive. Authorities are also draining glacial lakes to reduce the amount of water released by a breach, and they are discouraging settlement in GLOF hazard zones.
“If the lakes burst above the villages up in the Everest area, up between 12,000 to 13,000 feet, there are villages all the way downstream and they will wipe [away] some of these villages,” said Norbu Tenzin Norgyal, whose father, Sherpa Tenzin Norgyal, summited Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953. “The danger is real.”
The U.N. refugee agency said Saturday that 8,500 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kasai province had spontaneously abandoned their camp in Angola and were heading to the homes they fled more than one year ago.
The march home from the Lovua settlement in Angola’s Lunda Norte province began one week ago. U.N. refugee spokesman Andrej Mahecic said more than 1,000 refugees already had crossed into DRC and many more were moving toward the border with DRC’s Kasai region.
“This appears to be in response to reports of improved security in some of their places of origin,” Mahecic said. “It is also linked to their wish to return, as well as to be back home in time for the beginning of the new school year.”
Displaced by violence
Violence broke out in the Kasai region in August 2016, triggered by tensions between traditional chiefs and the government. Deadly clashes intensified between the government and armed groups in March 2017, displacing about 1.4 million people from their homes. An estimated 37,000 others fled across the border into Angola in search of refuge.
Mahecic told VOA the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees was engaged in tripartite discussions with Angolan and Congolese authorities to make sure this refugee return movement was well-organized and sustainable.
“The key point for us is to make sure there is proper planning and transport,” he said. “That is why we have engaged both governments on setting up a system where this can be planned, and the transport can be facilitated for those who wish to return home. And that is the key factor. The refugees themselves are the ones making that decision.”
Staff members along routes
Mahecic said UNHCR staff members were placed along the return routes to monitor the condition of people arriving and to assess the nature of these spontaneous returns. He said staff members were on hand to provide immediate help and to get firsthand information about the type of assistance the refugees would need when they returned home.
He added that not everyone was on the move. He noted most of the Congolese refugees remained in Angola. He said the UNHCR would continue to monitor the situation to make sure those who returned to their homes in Kasai were doing so voluntarily.
У Києві на НСК «Олімпійський» столичне «Динамо» і донецький «Олімпік» 24 серпня зіграли унічию 1:1 в дебютній грі під керівництвом нового тренера Олексія Михайличенка.
Голи у грі забили півзахисник «Олімпіка» Сергій Політило і півзахисник «Динамо» Віктор Циганков.
У київського «Динамо» після чотирьох поєдинків 7 очок. Від лідера – «Шахтаря» – команда відстає на 5 очок. «Олімпік» є аутсайдером чемпіонату. У команди після 5-ти ігор 1 очко.
14 серпня з посади головного тренера київського «Динамо» був звільнений Олександр Хацкевич. Це сталося після того, як днем раніше київське «Динамо» не змогло обіграти «Брюгге» з Бельгії і завершило виступи в Лізі чемпіонів. Клуб призначив своїм головним тренером Олексія Михайличенка, який останнім часом обіймав посаду спортивного директора клубу.
Михайличенко вже очолював «Динамо» в 2002-2004 роках. …
Український режисер Олег Сенцов отримав премію «Нептун» фестивалю Solidarity of Arts в Польщі. Про це 23 серпня повідомив адвокат Дмитро Дінзе в Фейсбуці.
У польському Гданську в цьому році фестиваль Solidarity of Arts присвятили Олегу Сенцову, повідомляє проект Радіо Свобода Крим. Реалії. Премію «Нептун» вручили сестрі Сенцова Наталії Каплан.
«Польське радіо» повідомляє, що гаслом фестивалю стала мужність.
«У цьому році фестиваль присвячений людині, яка не з нами – Олег Сенцов. Його доля говорить не тільки про майбутнє Росії і України, а й усієї Європи. Наш фестиваль є демонстрацією солідарності з ним», – сказав директор Європейського центру Солідарності у Гданську Басіль Керський.
Олег Сенцов засуджений в Росії на 20 років позбавлення волі за звинуваченням у підготовці теракту в анексованому Криму. Свою провину він не визнає. Минулого року режисер 145 днів тримав голодування з вимогою звільнити всіх українських політв’язнів.
25 жовтня 2018 українському режисерові Олегу Сенцову, ув’язненому в Росії, присудили премію Європарламенту «За свободу думки» імені Сахарова.
Правозахисний центр «Меморіал» вніс Олега Сенцова і Олександра Кольченка, якого також затримали і засулили разом із ним у Криму, до списку політв’язнів. …
У День Незалежності України в Дніпрі провели Марш волі, який організувалипредставники громадських організацій, учасників бойових дій на Донбасі та волонтерів. У ньому взяли участь кілька тисяч дніпрян: ветерани, родичі загиблих бійців, волонтери, небайдужі жителі міста та області.
Вбрані у вишиванки люди з синьо-жовтими та червоно-чорними прапорами під звуки військового оркестру оперативного командування «Схід» пройшли від скверу Героїв до найвищого в Україні флагштока з Державним прапором. Очолювали оркестр і родини загиблих українських військовослужбовців. Матері й батьки несли портрети своїх загиблих синів.
За словами речниці полку «Дніпро-1» Катерини Леонової, Марш волі – це «громадська ініціатива, спрямована на те, аби об’єднати українців з однією ідеєю – Україна понад усе».
Ході передував невеликий мітинг біля будівлі облдержадмінісрації. Дніпряни вшанували пам’ять загиблих за незалежність України хвилиною мовчання, виконали гімн. Священики ПЦУ відслужили молебень.
«Я впевнений, що в цій ході беремо участь не тільки ми, сущі, а й всі ті герої, які поклали своє життя за незалежність та волю нашої країни. Це не день народження нашої країни, а її відновлення. Побутує думка, що в такі дні соромно одягати вишиванку, недоречно одягти нагороди. А я хочу сказати, що доречно: нам нічого стидатись. Нагороди на ваших грудях – заслужені. Це озачає, що вам не соромно за те, що ви робили й робите всі ці 6 років», – сказав військовий капелан Дмитро Поворотний.
Також дня в Дніпрі з нагоди Дня незалежності на Фестивальному причалі проводять забіг у вишиванках Dnipro Vyshyvanky Run. Там же відкрився гастрономічний фестиваль Family Рicnic з фуд-кортом, ярмарком, дитячою анімацією, лучним і спортивним тиром, пінним шоу та святковим концертом, і проходить офіційний етап Чемпіонату України з автозвуку та тюнінгу.
На цій же локації ближче до вечора розпочнеться святковий концерт лауреатів всеукраїнського фестивалю «Пісні, народжені в АТО». Відкриє концерт виступ хору дніпровских волонтерів.
This is the second story in a series on how the U.S. government’s Migrant Protection Protocols are being carried out in Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Read the first story here.
VOA News Center Immigration Reporter Ramon Taylor, and VOA Spanish Service reporters Jorge Agobian and Celia Mendoza contributed to this report.
Like border cities everywhere, Nuevo Laredo is a portal. People and merchandise cross the five road and rail bridges between the U.S. and Mexico every day, in both directions, for work, school, business meetings, shopping, family visits, doctor appointments – the quotidian building blocks of life along the Rio Grande.
Pay 25 cents and you can walk right across Puente #1, as it’s known colloquially, in a few minutes if you’re in a rush and there’s no line at the immigration agent desks.
Formally the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge, it links Laredo’s historic city center neighborhood of San Agustin, to the commercial strip of shops, pharmacies and low-key lunchtime restaurants on Nuevo Laredo’s Avenida Guerrero.
It’s at the end of this bridge, when entering Mexico from the U.S., in the parking lot built for buses and trucks at the Mexican immigration agency’s customs office, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have dropped off migrants and asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico under the Trump administration’s Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) policy to wait for their immigration court dates.
FILE – FILE – People walk back to Mexico on the Americas International Bridge, a legal port of entry which connects Laredo, Texas in the U.S., with Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, July 18, 2019.
“In Nuevo Laredo, we’re used to seeing a lot of migrants (traveling through), historically,” said Raul Cárdenas Thomae, secretary of the Nuevo Laredo city council. “But in the last few months, the number of people crossing into the U.S. has definitely increased.”
Register in Mexico
At first, asylum-seekers would register with Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, which in turn would share lists of the asylum-seekers with the U.S. government, Cárdenas Thomae said. The list would allow the asylum-seekers to schedule an initial hearing with a U.S. immigration judge.
Beginning on July 9, however, Nuevo Laredo began receiving people from the other direction under the Trump administration’s new policy. Since then, more than 3,000 asylum-seekers who had crossed into the U.S. and are awaiting immigration court dates have been returned to Mexico under the MPP policy.
Moreover, migrants aren’t the only — or even the main — issue for local government for this city of about 400,000.
Nuevo Laredo maintains a prickly balance among massive amounts of transnational business, politics, migration and organized crime, and it’s long been a base for the Los Zetas cartel, whose activities are deeply entrenched in the city’s fabric.
Nuevo Laredo Mayor Enrique Rivas Cuéllar said every city has its dangers, its risks. But the city is not the one that is pushing migrants to leave, he insists.
“We obviously can’t force anyone not to be in the city of Nuevo Laredo, but what we can be strict about is that the laws are followed; that there is an order that doesn’t disrupt the rights of others,” he told VOA.
Officials didn’t know how many people to expect. At one point, local officials understood they might receive as many as 15,000 returnees, Cardenas Thomae said. Moreover, they don’t know how long people will stay — or even if they will stay.
FILE – Migrants sit in a bus that will take them and other migrants to Moneterrey, from an immigration center in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, July 18, 2019.
Buses to Monterrey
The Mexican government at first provided buses from Nuevo Laredo to Monterrey, a 270-kilometer (168-mile) journey that takes about three hours to drive. The buses were an option for migrants; no one was forced on board.
Beginning earlier this month, though, the buses that showed up at the bridge drop-off site were bound for Chiapas, the Mexican state bordering Guatemala, which in turn, borders Honduras and El Salvador.
Bus route from Nuevo Laredo to Tapachula, Mexico
The Homeland Security Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to multiple VOA requests for comment on Mexico’s busing plan and concerns over how people would be able to return for their U.S. court dates.
Calling the busing plan “voluntary,” said Maureen Meyer, director of Mexico programs at the Washington Office on Latin America, a Washington-based human rights organization, “seems hard to justify when the people aren’t even very clear on what they’re going into.”
Meyer traveled to Chiapas this month to see the buses from Nuevo Laredo arrive, after a more than 30-hour trip. Mexican immigration agents at the border with Guatemala seemed confused about what they should advise the busloads of people, she told VOA.
The arrival also raised issues for the migrants themselves, each theoretically with a U.S. court date in the coming months. Being closer to home could mean a place to shower and regroup, or pick up more paperwork for their cases. However, they often don’t understand that even a brief return home could weaken their asylum cases, Meyer said.
Behind the scenes, CBP officials, journalists, shelter directors, politicians, and immigration lawyers are asking questions about how MPP functions. Unlike CBP and DHS officials, though, Nuevo Laredo municipality officials were willing to not only talk, but sit down for interviews on camera and address MPP.
The migrants themselves don’t have access to these discussions, though, or to people whom they could ask questions. They have some paperwork that in some cases they don’t understand, or don’t trust, such as a list of free or low-cost lawyers from CBP. The migrants have often thrown away their cellphones before crossing the river and haven’t seen the news in weeks or months.
FILE – A woman and her 7-month-old baby stand on a sidewalk after being bused by Mexican authorities from Nuevo Laredo to Monterrey, Mexico.
Immigration attorneys acknowledge that even if the migrants could get cellphone service in Mexico, and can pay for phone credit, there’s a good chance they couldn’t get a lawyer. Border attorneys are stretched thin, and the length of some asylum cases — which can take years — makes it difficult for outside lawyers to connect with potential clients.
US Border Patrol
The long wait may push people to reattempt a stealth border crossing, possibly in a more dangerously remote area.
“I envision a time where everybody… (is) going to try and traverse and evade apprehension and become part of this smuggling effort that happens on this side of the border, as opposed to just on the Mexican side of the border,” Del Rio Sector U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said.
Meanwhile, the migrants and asylum-seekers are still arriving to Nuevo Laredo, and still deciding how and where to wait out the months until their first hearing.
Lilian, a Honduran woman traveling with her 9-year-old son, said the group dropped off at Puente #1 on August 8 was told if they didn’t get on the buses to Chiapas, they would be put out on the street.
She and her son, along with a woman and her children in the CBP facility, did not get on the bus, but headed to another Mexican city.
“What I don’t want is to go back to Honduras. … If we go to Chiapas, how much is it going to cost me to come back? I don’t have that kind of money,” said Lilian, who was given a November court date.
Поліція нарахувала на заходах у центрі Києва «у піковий період» близько 50 тисяч людей, повідомив на брифінгу начальник столичної поліції Андрій Крищенко.
За його словами, протягом обох акцій було троє затриманих: у двох під час перевірки на вході на марш виявили речовину, схожу на канабіс, а ще одного чоловіка затримали під час виступу президента.
«Кілька людей залізли на металеві конструкції, і коли поліцейські чи охоронці попросили їх звідти злізти, одна людина, попередньо – візуально у стані алкогольного сп’яніння відмовилась. Чоловік голосно заявив, що у нього є граната, вжили заходів, його зняли. Так, у нього є тілесні ушкодження при затриманні, його направили до лікарні, йому надали допомогу, він відмовився від госпіталізації», – сказав Крищенко.
За його словами, заборонених речей у чоловіка не виявили, склади адміністративні протоколи за статтями про непокору поліції та дрібне хуліганство.
Момент затримання виклав у соцмережі журналіст Євген Спірін.
Окрім того, як зазначив Євген Крищенко, під час заходів до Дня незалежності поліція отримала одне повідомлення про замінування майдану Незалежності, з цього приводу почали провадження.
Сьогодні, 24 серпня, Україна святкує 28-й День Незалежності. У столиці Києві відбулися як офіційне святкування, «Хода гідності» за участі президента України, так і неофіційний Марш ветеранів. Традиційного параду військової техніки в Києві цього року не проводять.
Hong Kong is experiencing another Saturday of protests, as the rallies enter their third month.
Police clashed with demonstrators and used tear gas to disperse the crowd outside a police station Saturday.
Protesters also cut down a “smart lamppost” because they feared it was being used for surveillance by Chinese authorities.
Hong Kong’s government said, however, that the lamppost only collected data on traffic, weather and air quality.
Protesters have called for an attempt Saturday to blockade routes to the city’s airport, which could disrupt the complex if large numbers turn out.
Last week, Hong Kong’s airport was forced to close when protesters occupied terminals. China called the behavior “near-terrorist acts” and some protesters later issued an apology.
Police and demonstrators clash in Hong Kong, Aug. 24, 2019. The city’s pro-democracy protesters took to the streets again, this time to call for the removal of “smart lampposts” that raised fears of stepped-up surveillance.
Hong Kong police said Friday said the city’s high court extended an order restricting protests at the airport.
“Any person who unlawfully or willfully obstructs or interferes with the normal operation of the airport” is liable to face criminal charges, said Foo Yat-ting, the senior superintendent of Hong Kong Police Force’s Kowloon East Region.
Hong Kong’s Airport Authority also published a half-page notice in newspapers urging people to “love Hong Kong” and not to block the airport.
On Friday, thousands of Hong Kong protesters joined hands to form human chains in a peaceful protest, recreating a “Baltic Chain” that pro-democracy demonstrators used against the Soviet Union three decades ago.
Demonstrators linked hands or held their lighted phones above their heads, creating a line of lights against the night sky.
The “Baltic Chain” or “Baltic Way” was one of the largest anti-Soviet demonstrations, with more than one million people linking hands over 600 kilometers on August 23, 1989.
Demonstrators put papers on a fallen smart lamppost during a protest in Hong Kong, Aug. 24, 2019.
Saturday’s demonstration in Hong Kong is the latest in a weeks-long movement that began with calls to stop an extradition bill, which has now been scrapped, and has expanded to include demands for full democracy.
Also Saturday, the news emerged that China has released from custody an employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong.
Protesters had called for Simon Cheng’s release.
Cheng was allegedly arrested by Chinese police on the night of August 8 while traveling back to Hong Kong from a business trip. His whereabouts remained unknown for some time. China confirmed Wednesday that Cheng had been held for a 15-day administrative detention became of allegations of violating local laws.
He was arrested in Shenzhen, the mainland city neighboring Hong Kong.
Two years ago, Myanmar’s army drew international condemnation for driving more than 750,000 Muslim Rohingya into neighboring Bangladesh. This week the Myanmar and Bangladesh governments announced the beginning of a voluntary repatriation plan for many, however not a single person volunteered to go back. Steve Sandford spoke to refugees and rights workers about the prospect of returning home amid security and rights concerns.
Will Russia join next year’s G-7 summit? The question is being considered after U.S. President Donald Trump raised the idea ahead of the group’s annual summit this week in France. The group voted to suspend Moscow’s membership in 2014 after it annexed Crimea, which Russia continues to hold. Trump says it’s time for them to rejoin. Anna Rice reports on whether that’s likely to happen.
President Donald Trump has abandoned his fight with Congress over slashing $4 billion in foreign aid and will allow the appropriated funds to be spent. But the State Department says it agreed with the White House to “redirect all funding that does not directly support our priorities.” VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington.
The World Health Organization said Friday that the deadly Ebola virus had spread to new areas in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The number of cases was 2,934, including 1,965 deaths, it said.
Since mid-June, the WHO has reported an average of 80 new Ebola cases every week. It said, though, that these numbers have been falling in recent weeks.
Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said two new health zones, Mwenga in South Kivu and Pinga in North Kivu, had reported cases in the past week, and that the risk of further spread remained high.
“The geographic extension of the virus has increased while the intensity of transmission has reduced in that time,” he said. “So we are winning against the virus in the intense transmission areas, but still failing to prevent the further extension of the virus into other areas before the disease is properly extinguished.”
Ryan noted progress in containing the disease was being made in some areas. He said some powerful tools were being put to good use in tackling the disease. He said a vaccine now is available that is protecting people from becoming infected, which wasn’t the case in previous outbreaks. Also, two new therapeutics are successfully saving the lives of people with Ebola who seek early treatment.
FILE – A health worker injects a man with Ebola vaccine in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Aug. 5, 2019.
Community mistrust
But Ryan said pockets of community mistrust continued to hinder efforts to stop the epidemic. He said negative social media campaigns that have spread false information were creating difficulties in gaining community confidence.
He said, for instance, that some messages have said the vaccine is used to infect people, not protect them, and treatments are used to finish victims off. “And there are WhatsApp groups and many social media conversations that are going on at that level,” he said. “And populations, like in every country in the world, are exposed to both the positive and negative media around any intervention like this.”
Ryan said WHO must be smarter, quicker and more effective in getting communities to hear its messages about pathways to good health. He said the way to counter bad information is not by blocking it, but by putting out good information. Then, he said, it is up to the communities to choose the messages they believe will best ensure their own future.
China and Russia believe they can behave as they want and have impunity to crush dissent because Western states are at odds with themselves and have lost confidence in their ability to shape the world around them, warn analysts.
“There is a danger that we in the West are becoming bystanders to the great events swirling around the globe. Our inability to articulate a clear response that generates a change in behavior means a sense of impunity dominates,” argued Rafaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.
Writing in Britain’s The Times newspaper, Pantucci said, “Our responses to the current protests going on in Hong Kong and Moscow are the clearest articulations of this problem. Beijing and Moscow have largely behaved as they would like.”
Anti-G-7 activists march along a road near a tent camp near Hendaye, France, Aug. 23, 2019.
Western diplomats and analysts fear this week’s three-day G-7 summit in the French resort town of Biarritz will demonstrate again the lack of unity among Western leaders over a series of issues, including climate change, relations with Russia, rising nationalism, and the trade war between the United States and China, whose fallout is hurting Europe far more than America. The G-7 comprises the world’s largest advanced democracies.
In order to try to reduce a display of disunity, the summit host, French President Emmanuel Macron, is lobbying for the gathering not to issue a joint communique for the first time in the G-7’s history. He hopes to avoid a repeat of last year when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew his endorsement of the joint statement 10 minutes after it was released. Macron wants instead to replace the communique by delivering as G-7 chairman a summary of the main discussions.
Divisions feared
Whether that papers over disputes remains in doubt. Some analysts say the summit risks becoming explosive.
“There is huge scope for the Western world to look more divided by the end of the meeting than it did at the beginning,” said William Hague, a former British foreign secretary. He says the G-7 leaders are “desperately short of ideas around which they can coalesce,” ones they need in order “to address the main threats that will overcome them unless they look far enough ahead now.”
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech on environment and social equality to business leaders on the eve of the G-7 summit, in Paris, Aug. 23, 2019.
On the eve of the meeting, Macron set out an ambitious plan to challenge fellow leaders to rethink their approach to global leadership. He will urge them to rescue democracy from nationalist populists, to temper capitalism, to lessen social inequality and to boost biodiversity, and to re-embrace multilateralism — all of which risks strong pushback from Trump.
The U.S. leader is skeptical of multilateralism and frustrated with the lack of European support for his “maximum pressure” aggressive stance toward Iran. He is also pressing the Europeans to back his trade confrontation with China, arguing that short-term pain is necessary in order to “take on” Beijing, otherwise the West, in the long term, will be the losers.
Blaming China, Russia
Some Western commentators blame Trump and other nationalist populists for Western disunity, but others see the fraying of Western-shaped global leadership as a consequence of a deeper, historical malaise amid the rise of an aggressive China, which uses commerce as a tool of statecraft and diplomacy, and an assertive Russia that increasingly voices disdain for the West and is eager to develop a partnership with China.
Asked whether he would welcome Moscow being readmitted to the G-7, Russian President Vladmir Putin scoffed at the idea, saying, “The G-7 doesn’t exist. How can I come back to an organization that doesn’t exist?” Putin said he prefers the G-20 format because it includes countries like India and China. The G-20 refers to the group of 20 major economies.
Investing heavily in the West and the developing world, Beijing isn’t shy about demanding a political quid pro quo and the Hong Kong protests have placed the Europeans, especially the British, in a dilemma. Should they champion the rights and freedoms the people of Hong Kong enshrined in a joint declaration signed with Beijing before the British handed the territory back to the Chinese in 1997, or muffle their complaints about Chinese heavy-handedness in order to ingratiate themselves with Beijing and reap commercial benefits?
FILE – Hong Kong protesters gather outside the subway station in Sheung Wan district participate the “823 Road for Hong Kong” human chain rally (Photo: Iris Tong / VOA Cantonese)
That dilemma is only going to become sharper as anti-government protests in Hong Kong continue, risking Chinese military intervention in the former British colony. Beijing has made it clear, with thinly-disguised threats, that British criticism needs to be tempered, otherwise London, which is desperate to boost its trade with China post-Brexit, will lose out financially.
Hague argues that the G-7 “should be restating the case for freedom.” He says that the end of the Cold War “has deprived democratic nations of their automatic unity, and the global financial crisis has rocked their self-confidence.”
The financial shock came amid a longer-term trend: the hollowing out of the West’s industrial base with manufacturing shifting eastward, prompting the anger of the working classes in the West, who resent losing out on the benefits of globalism, making them question the whole basis of multilateralism.
According to Antonio Barroso, an analyst with the geostrategic risk consulting group Teneo, “We have passed from a world that was certainly much more multilateral than the one that we have now.”
President Donald Trump’s campaign is rallying and training a corps of female defenders, mindful that Trump’s shaky standing with women could sink his hopes of re-election next year.
Female surrogates and supporters fanned out across important battlegrounds Thursday in a high-profile push to make the president’s case on the economy and to train campaign volunteers. Organizers said they believe female backers are often uncomfortable acknowledging they support Trump.
“We want to empower women with other women to be able to share the message of success of this president, to share their success under this president,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine, who will be leading one of the events in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The move is a recognition of the president’s persistent deficit with women. Over the course of his presidency and across public opinion polls, women have been consistently less supportive of Trump than men. Suburban women in particular rejected Republicans in the 2018 midterm by margins that set off alarms for the party and the president.
The most recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found just 30% of women approve of the way the president is doing his job, compared to 42% of men. Notably, there was no gap between Republican men and women — 80% of both groups said they approved of his job performance in the August poll.
A cutout of President Trump and his wife Melania is shown outside a training session for Women for Trump, An Evening to Empower, in Troy, Mich., Aug. 22, 2019.
Much of the campaign’s appeal to women has so far focused on highlighting economic gains since Trump’s election in 2016, a message that is especially vulnerable to a slowdown. That includes frequently pointing to the jobless rate for women, which fell to 3.4% in April — the lowest since 1953, even though it has since crept up to 3.7%.
“You are the cavalry here,” Trump campaign senior adviser Katrina Pierson told a crowd of supporters at a voter registration training event in Troy, Michigan, a Detroit suburb viewed as key contested territory in this swing state. “There is no president in our lifetime that has done more to advance the interests of women than President Donald J. Trump.”
Similar events were scheduled in 13 battleground states, including Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Ohio. The events, led by surrogates including counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, will try to train attendees to be volunteers and what the campaign describes as “ambassadors” for the re-election effort.
Among the women in attendance in Troy was Cara McAlister, a sales representative from the nearby suburb of Bloomfield Township. She said that she always votes but that it was not until Trump’s 2016 candidacy that she was inspired to get more involved politically, becoming a GOP precinct delegate and canvassing door to door for him.
She said she has friends who were afraid to reveal their support for Trump because they worried about backlash. So she invites them to meetings like Thursday’s gathering.
“They really enjoy being in an atmosphere where they feel free to express their support for the president,” said McAlister, who was wearing a white “Make America Great Again” cap and blue Trump-Pence shirt and who described herself as “middle age.” “They tend to want to go to another event.”
AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters nationwide, found that 40% of women voted for Republicans in last year’s congressional elections, compared to 50% of men. In suburban areas in particular, 38% of women and 49% of men voted for Republicans.
Trump has turned off higher-income, college educated and younger women “because of how he speaks, how he tweets,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz, while retaining the support of older women and women with lower incomes and without college degrees.
That contrast is evident in Iowa, a state Trump won by more than 9 percentage points in 2016, but one that has historically been seen as a potential swing state.
Some Republican women here, like Des Moines resident Pat Inglis, have become more fervent Trump supporters over the course of his first term.
“He’s helped this country more than anybody else in the last 20 years,” the 70-year-old retiree said. She added that Democratic attacks against the president, and the leftward tilt of the Democratic Party, have made her all the more enthusiastic to support Trump.
Others, like Mary Miner, a lifelong Republican and small-business owner from rural Iowa, were driven away from the GOP by Trump.
“Trump is horrible,” the 61-year-old said. “I’m astonished anyone could support him. If my party is going to support that, I’m done with `em. I’m a Democrat and that’s it.”
Miner switched parties in 2017 and will be caucusing for Elizabeth Warren next year.
At the same time, said Luntz, recent focus groups show that women have dug in on their views, suggesting there are fewer women open to being persuaded.
“What’s happened is it’s become more pronounced where those who don’t like him are overtly hostile and those who do like him will stand up for him aggressively,” Luntz said. “They are even more outspoken than men. They are even more dismissive. It’s spoken with attitude and with venom. And I think it’s because they take it personally.”
As a result, he said, the election is likely to come down to a very narrow demographic — married professional mothers with teenage kids, he says — who credit Trump for a booming economy but are turned off by his style.
“They like what he’s done, but they don’t like how he’s done it,” he said. “Do you want to focus on the ingredients, or do you want to focus on the casserole?”
У Міністерстві закордонних справ України повідомили про нові візові полегшення для українських громадян. Цього разу вони стосуються Лаосу і Шрі-Ланки.
Як повідомив Департамент консульської служби МЗС, уряд Лаосу запровадив для українців можливість отримувати електронну візу для туристичних поїздок на термін до 30 днів.
Реєстрація для отримання такої візи можлива на лаоському урядовому сайті «eVisa Lao Official Online Visa» за адресою https://laoevisa.gov.la
А уряд Шрі-Ланки, наразі тимчасово, скасував для громадян України плату за електронне підтвердження подорожі (Electronic Travel Authorization – ETA) – на термін до 31 січня 2020 року. Ця можливість стосується українців, які їдуть до цієї країни з туристичної метою.
Реєстрація для отримання такого підтвердження здійснюється на шрі-ланкійському урядовому сайті «Sri Lanka Electronic Travel Authorization System» за адресою http://www.eta.gov.lk
Після отримання цього підтвердження, інформує МЗС, громадяни України, які бажають відвідати Шрі-Ланку з туристичною метою, можуть оформити туристичну візу терміном дії до одного місяця в міжнародному аеропорту міста Коломбо і прикордонних пунктах пропуску.
«При проходженні прикордонного контролю іноземців можуть попросити пред’явити зворотній квиток, дорожні чеки чи кредитні картки, а також документи, що підтверджують туристичний характер поїздки. Туристичну візу можливо подовжити в Департаменті міграції та імміграції Шрі-Ланки. Візи інших типів оформлюються лише дипломатичними представництвами й консульськими установами Шрі-Ланки за кордоном», – мовиться в повідомленні.
Щодо Лаосу також лишається можливість оформлювати в’їзну візу безпосередньо в міжнародних аеропортах у В’єнтьяні, Луанг-Прабангу, Паксе, Варреї терміном до 30 днів із єдиним можливим продовженням у подальшому (або в дипломатичному представництві Лаосу, що працює в Москві).
Для оформлення в цих аеропортах в’їзної візи заявник має подати: закордонний паспорт з терміном дії не менш ніж 6 місяців до запланованого виїзду з Лаосу, дві фотокартки 3,5 см на 4,5 см, заповнену візову анкету, зворотній/транзитний квиток або документ, що підтверджує мету поїздки й перебування в Лаосі, консульський збір у розмірі 30 доларів США. Крім того, при відльоті з Лаосу стягується збір аеропорту (міжнародні вильоти – 10 доларів США на людину; місцеві – 5000 лаоських кіп на людину). …
A Tanzanian journalist has been arrested for “publishing false information” after broadcasting a story about police brutality, his lawyer said Friday, in the latest crackdown on free press in the country.
Joseph Gandye, who works for local station Watetezi TV, was arrested Thursday in the financial capital Dar es Salaam and held in police custody overnight.
His lawyer, Jones Sendodo, said Gandye was transferred to Iringa in Tanzania’s south on Friday.
“He is accused of publishing false information,” Sendodo told AFP.
The Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition, which found Watetezi TV last year, said Gandye was arrested after airing a story on August 9 about police in Iringa forcing six young detainees to sodomise each other.
His arrest comes less than a month after another Tanzanian journalist, Erick Kabendera, was detained in circumstances condemned by rights groups.
Kabendera, a respected journalist and government critic, was initially questioned over his citizenship before being threatened with sedition charges.
But in court these were dropped, and he was charged with organised crime and financial offences.
The US and British embassies in Tanzania have formally expressed their concern over a “steady erosion of due process” in the country, underscoring Kabendera’s plight as a case in point.
Accusations of “sedition” and other vague offences have been levelled against journalists and media houses under President John Magufuli, who has been criticised for his authoritarian leadership style.
Magufuli has shut down newspapers, banned opposition rallies, switched off live broadcasts of parliamentary sessions and used the cybercrimes law to jail critics.
Azory Gwanda, a Tanzanian journalist and government critic who disappeared in 2017, has never been found.
Reporters Without Borders has labelled Magufuli a “press freedom predator” and dropped Tanzania 25 places on its annual press freedom index this year.
Фільм українского кримськотатарського режисера Нарімана Алієва «Додому» висунули від України цього року на премію Американської кіноакадемії «Оскар», повідомляє український оскарівський комітет на своїй фейсбук-сторінці.
Повнометражна стрічка «Додому» (Evge/Homeward) – це фільм про кримського татарина Мустафу (його грає Ахтем Саїбтаблаєв), старший син якого був убитий під час війни на Донбасі, тож чоловік їде з молодшим сином до анесованого Криму, аби поховати його.
Прем’єра фільму відбулася 22 травня на 72-му Каннському міжнародному кінофестивалі, де він взяв участь в конкурсній програмі «Особливий погляд». У прокат фільм вийде 7 листопада.
Як повідомляв раніше проект Радіо Свобода Крим. Реалії, стрічка вже отрималагран-прі X Одеського міжнародного кінофестивалю, а також була відзначена нагородою за найкращий фільм на міжнародному кінофестивалі в Бухаресті. …
The three Baltic countries on Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the 1989 “Baltic Way,” a historic anti-Soviet protest that involved nearly 2 million people forming a human chain more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) long.
On Aug. 23, 1989, as the Soviet Union was weakening, the gesture was a powerful expression on the part of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians that they were not giving up on their independence even after decades of Soviet occupation.
“People holding hands can be stronger than people holding guns,” said Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas in a tweet.
The celebrations come as the inhabitants of the three nations _ and many beyond _ worry about Russia’s renewed ambitions to influence the region.
“We must remember the courage and dreams of the participants. But let it also be a reminder that freedom and democracy can never be taken for granted,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said in a statement.
The Baltic News Service recalled Friday that then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Moscow “started realizing very clearly that the three Baltic nations were moving toward political independence.”
The main commemorations are taking place in Vilnius, the capital of the southern-most Baltic country, and along the Lithuania-Latvia border, with a relay-race and an exhibition. In the evening, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda will host a concert in central Vilnius.
In the Latvian capital of Riga, the three Baltic prime ministers will lay wreaths at the foot of a freedom monument.
The chain has inspired others, including a 2008 human chain in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where a crowd of at least 100,000 people jammed Tbilisi’s main avenue.
In Hong-Kong, protesters planned Friday to form a 40-kilometer (25-mile) human chain to demand more freedoms from China, saying it was inspired by the “Baltic Way.”
The Baltic countries declared their independence from Russia in 1918 but were annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940. Friday’s events also marked the 80th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a secret agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that led to the occupation of the Baltic states and Poland.
The Baltic nations remained part of the Soviet Union until 1991.
У Кремлі підтвердили проведення переговорів між лідерами Росії та України Володимиром Путіним та Володимиром Зеленським щодо обміну утримуваних осіб, повідомляє російське державне інформагентство ТАСС.
«Поки ми констатуємо початок діалогу між президентами Путіним і Зеленським, констатуємо певні контакти, які здійснюються в розвиток цих розмов і в розвиток тих розумінь, які були досягнуті в ході розмов», – заявив речник російського президента Дмитро Пєсков.
Раніше сьогодні президент України Володимир Зеленський заявив, що сподівається на «перші результати» щодо обміну утримуваних осіб між Україною та Росією найближчим часом.
Раніше, 20 серпня, російська правозахисниця Вікторія Івлєва повідомила, що адміністрація московського слідчого ізолятора «Лефортово» прийняла передачі для п’ятьох утримуваних Росією українців – Володимира Балуха, Станіслава Клиха, Олександра Кольченка, Павла Гриба і Миколи Карпюка. 21 серпня Івлєва розповіла, що адміністрація «Лефортова» прийняла передачі для трьох інших українців, утримуваних російською владою, – Романа Сущенка, Олексія Сизоновича і Євгена Панова. До цього українці перебували в місцях позбавлення волі в інших російських регіонах.
Припускають, що цих українців у Росії готують на обмін.
А в Україні адвокат Валентин Рибін заявив 22 серпня, що колишні українські військові Максим Одинцов і Олександр Баранов, засуджені у «справі кримських дезертирів», а також громадяни Росії Євген Мефьодов, фігурант справи про події 2 травня 2014 року в Одесі, й Ігор Кімаковський, затриманий як підозрюваний «агент ФСБ Росії», проходять юридичні процедури оформлення обміну на утримуваних у Росії українців. За його словами, в обміні візьмуть участь не тільки ці четверо, а й інші.
За даними Міністерства закордонних справ України, Росія незаконно утримує понад 70 українців. До цього числа не входять 24 українські моряки, захоплені Росією біля Керченської протоки наприкінці листопада 2018 року. …
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to find a quid pro quo response after the test of a new U.S. missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty.
In Sunday’s test, a modified ground-launched version of a Navy Tomahawk cruise missile accurately struck its target more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away. The test came after the U.S. and Russia withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The U.S. has explained its withdrawal from the treaty by Russian violations, a claim Moscow has denied. Speaking Friday, Putin charged that the U.S. wanted to “untie its hands to deploy the previously banned missiles in different parts of the world.”
He ordered the Defense Ministry and other agencies to “take the necessary measures to prepare a symmetrical answer.”
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday it would invite Boeing 737 Max pilots from across the world to participate in simulator tests as part of the process to recertify the aircraft for flight following two fatal crashes.
Earlier, Reuters reported that the agency had asked the three U.S. airlines that operate the Max to provide the names of some pilots who had only flown the 737 for around a year, including at least one Max flight.
In a statement, the FAA said it had not specified the number of required hours of flight experience, but said the candidates would be a cross-section of line pilots and must have experience at the controls of the Max.
Boeing Co’s latest 737 narrow-body model, the Max, was grounded worldwide in March after two crashes within five months in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.
Boeing has been reprogramming software for a stall-prevention system at the center of both crashes, which the FAA must approve before the plane flies again commercially.
The FAA said it has not yet specified a firm schedule for the tests.
Social media users are fueling a burgeoning appetite for acquiring wild otters and other endangered animals as pets, conservationists say, warning the trend could push species toward extinction.
Popular Instagrammers posting selfies with their pet otter may simply be seeking to warm the hearts of their sometimes hundreds of thousands of followers, but animal protection groups say the trend is posing an existential threat to the silky mammal.
“The illegal trade in otters has suddenly increased exponentially,” Nicole Duplaix, who co-chairs the Otter Specialist Group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, told AFP.
An Asian small-clawed otter, the smallest otter species in the world, feeds on fish in its enclosure at the Singapore Zoo, Jan. 11, 2018, in Singapore.
All Asian otter species have long been listed as vulnerable or endangered after facing decades of shrinking habitats and illegal trade in their pelts.
But conservationists say the recent surge in social media hype around the creatures has sparked such a frenzied demand for baby otters in Asian countries, Japan in particular, that it could drive entire species toward extinction.
Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), currently in Geneva to evaluate and fine-tune the treaty that manages trade in more than 35,000 species of plants and animals, will consider proposals to hike protection of two particularly imperiled otter species.
Dangerous cute factor
The Asian small-clawed otter and the smooth-coated otter are already listed as threatened under CITES Appendix II, but India, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Philippines are asking that they are moved to Appendix I, which would mean a full international trade ban.
Conservationists insist the move is vital, after both species have seen their numbers plunge at least 30% in three decades, and with the decline believed to have accelerated significantly in the past few years.
“This is especially being fueled by the desire to have otters as an exotic pet, and social media is really driving that,” Cassandra Koenen, who heads the Wildlife Not Pets campaign at World Animal Protection, told AFP.
Paul Todd of the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) agreed.
“It is really remarkable to see how the latest trends in social media and social influencing have a direct correlation with the demise of species on the ground,” he told AFP.
Popular figures on Instagram and Facebook often rake in thousands of gushing comments about their otter pictures, such as “cuteness overload,” “otterly adorable,” and “want one!”
Duplaix acknowledged that otters are “very charismatic creatures,” saying “it is the cute factor that is causing their demise.”
Unseen suffering
The pictures mask the suffering of the naturally social mammals taken from the wild when they are held in captivity and isolation.
Koenen pointed to the numerous “funny videos” posted of pet otters turning in circles, saying that to a trained eye, it is obvious: “The reason the animal is spinning around is that it is in huge distress.”
Amid the growing demand for pet otters, hunters and fishermen in Indonesia and Thailand especially are increasingly killing adult otters and snatching the babies, which are caged and shipped off to become exotic pets.
The main destination is Japan, where one otter pup can fetch up to $10,000 (about 9,000 euros).
Promotional signboards for pet cafes featuring exotic animals, including otters, right, on display in the Harajuku district in Tokyo, Aug. 21, 2019.
Otter cafes
Several “otter cafes” have also popped up in the country, with patrons urged to buy small pieces of food to feed the caged mammals and to snap a selfie with them while drinking a coffee.
“It is a very unnatural environment for them,” Koenen said, maintaining that they are often isolated in individual cages, given poor nutrition and little access to water.
Pet otters may have it better, but they still suffer from being far from their natural environment and away from the large family groups they lived with in the wild, she said.
Koenen also warned that smiling selfies with pet otters provide a “false narrative” about what it is like to live with the wild creatures, which smell and are prone to biting.
“They make very unsuitable pets,” she said.
Social media platforms have meanwhile made it too easy to purchase exotic pets like otters, she said, sparking impulse buys with little reflection over the implications of bringing a wild animal into one’s home.
Otters are not the only species suffering from a booming and often social-media fueled interest in exotic pets.
Among the 56 proposals on the table in Geneva for increased protection listings, 22 involve species, including lizards, geckos, tortoises and spiders, which suffer because of the multibillion-dollar exotic pet trade.
Todd said there was mounting evidence that “a species can go from completely fine to utterly gone in the matter of a few years because of this drive in desire for images.”
“Baby otters are dying, and for what? A selfie,” he said. “We have to stop this.”
Thirty-eight former students of an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City operated by Yeshiva University sued Thursday over claims they were molested by two prominent rabbis in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
The suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleges that the university failed to protect students at Yeshiva University High School for Boys and promoted one of the rabbis to principal even after receiving abuse reports.
A Yeshiva University spokesperson declined to comment, citing a school policy against speaking publicly about litigation.
The lawsuit is one of hundreds that have been filed over child sexual abuse allegations since last week, when New York state opened a one-year window for suits previously barred by the state’s statute of limitations.
During a news conference Thursday, three of the alleged victims, flanked by their lawyers, spoke about disturbing behavior they say went on for decades.
“I didn’t even understand at the time that this was sexual abuse; I just knew that this guy was putting his hands all over me,” said Barry Singer, 61, speaking of one of the rabbis he said kept reaching into the boy’s pants, even in school hallways.
The Associated Press doesn’t typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they choose to be named.
Accused rabbis
One of the accused rabbis, George Finkelstein, targeted children of Holocaust survivors, according to the lawsuit, telling them they would increase their parents’ suffering if they spoke about the abuse. The other, Rabbi Macy Gordon, who taught Jewish studies, allegedly sodomized boys in a “vicious and sadistic” manner using objects, the lawsuit says. Gordon died in 2017 in Israel. Both he and Finkelstein have denied the allegations in the past.
David Bressler listens during a press conference in New York, Aug. 22, 2019.
Finkelstein was promoted from the school’s assistant principal to principal even after some of the boys’ parents reported the alleged abuse to school officials, the plaintiffs said. Gordon eventually moved to Israel, where he worked at Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue. Calls to the synagogue rang unanswered Thursday.
Thirty-four of the plaintiffs attempted to sue Yeshiva University for sexual abuse and facilitating sexual abuse in 2013 but the case went nowhere because it was barred by the statute of limitations at the time. On Thursday, one of their attorneys, Kevin Mulhearn, called the plaintiffs “trailblazers.”
Alleged victim
David Bressler, 51, said the abuse he suffered while a student in the early ’80s led him to abandon his religion that now rekindles memories of the abuse. He has no contact with his parents and other relatives who are observant Jews. When he married his Jewish wife a decade ago, he made her promise not to raise their children in the Jewish faith.
He said he still doesn’t tuck in his shirt, a habit he started in high school to make it more difficult for his abuser to put his hand down his pants. Bressler once punched Finkelstein while he says the rabbi was sexually “wrestling” with him.
Now there are days he can’t bear being on a crowded subway because “I can’t stand being touched by people.”
“So you don’t even realize what the long-term impact is,” said Bressler, a father of two.
Yeshiva University, which calls itself “the world’s premier Jewish institution for higher learning,” has trained both secular and religious leaders for the past century. With four campuses in Manhattan, the university operates the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law and other schools that attract a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish students.
The high school, also known as the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy, has taught boys since 1916. It’s considered the first academic Jewish high school in the U.S. and the first to offer both Jewish and secular studies.
Italy’s center-left Democratic Party and the country’s quirky anti-establishment Five Star Movement are exploring whether they can form a new government to spare Italians an election this year.
The one thing the two parties have in common is fear of Matteo Salvini, leader of the populist Lega Party, who hopes to sweep into power at the head of a far-right alliance in the event of a snap election he’s engineering to happen.
Brussels is becoming increasingly unsettled at the prospect of a Salvini government emerging from Italy’s political chaos, which was triggered this week when the unstable two-party coalition government formed just a year ago between the Lega and the Five Star Movement (M5S) formally collapsed amid acrimony and recriminations.
Salvini yanked his party out of the coalition government earlier this month, hoping he could ride his rising popularity to capture the prime ministership and seize what he termed “full powers.”
FILE – Giuseppe Conte, then Italy’s prime minister, speaks to journalists at an impromptu news conference in Rome, Aug. 8, 2019.
Outgoing Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who resigned Tuesday in a rowdy parliamentary session, blamed Salvini for the unraveling of the short-lived, troubled government, accusing him of plotting to bring down the coalition, riding roughshod over his partners in government and showing disrespect for a “culture of rules.”
He also criticized Salvini for mixing political slogans with religious symbolism, prompting the Lega leader to retort that he wasn’t ashamed of his religious faith or for having invoked the protection of the Immaculate Heart of the Madonna.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella is now consulting with the various squabbling parliamentary parties to see if a working majority can be formed to avoid fresh elections and to bring some respite to the political drama.
Italy’s president also has the option of appointing a government of technocrats, as was formed in 2011 in the wake of the Italian debt crisis. Mattarella has let it be known that he’d prefer to stave off an election until next year in order for parliament to agree on a budget, a process that normally takes three months.
Focus on longer term
But the 78-year-old head of state has also made it clear he doesn’t want yet another short-lived government. The only real possibility for a new government lies with a tie-up between the Democrats (PD) and M5S.
But many analysts are skeptical that the two parties can overcome their differences, and if so, for how long, despite their shared interest in halting the momentum of Salvini. The outgoing interior minister and the country’s most popular politician, Salvini has been building electorally thanks partly to his adeptness in dominating news cycles.
M5S, founded by the popular comic and blogger Beppo Grillo, built much of its success at the expense of the PD and has focused especially on the traditional strongholds of the left in the country’s so-called Red Belt across central Italy and in the south. The party has gone out of its way to humiliate the PD, linking it tirelessly to corruption and cronyism and accusing it of being out of touch with the working class.
A coalition between the two would be yet another oddball alliance paralyzed by internal disputes, warn analysts. While the PD is pro-European Union, M5S is skeptical and at one time wanted to ditch the euro currency.
Democratic Party leader Nicola Zingaretti, center, leaves after meeting Italian President Sergio Mattarella, in Rome, Aug. 22, 2019. Mattarella was receiving political leaders to explore whether a majority exists in Parliament for a new government.
PD leader Nicola Zingaretti has voiced considerable skepticism about a tie-up, saying in a television interview Wednesday, “Discontinuity applies to personnel, as well as content.”
But on Thursday, he left the door open, saying the archrivals could see eye to eye on issues of social justice and immigration. M5S has often been at odds with Salvini’s tough anti-migrant polices, which have helped boost the Lega’s electoral appeal.
After meeting Mattarella on Thursday, Zingaretti said he was willing to explore forming a new coalition government but “not at any cost.” He told reporters it was a gamble.
“We need a government that changes direction, an alternative to the right, with a new, solid program, a broad base in parliament which gives back hope to Italians.” If the gamble fails, “the natural way out of the crisis is new, early elections,” he added.
Warning from Berlusconi
The proposal for a possible coalition government has been rejected by former Conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who also met with Mattarella. The center-right leader, whose political star has waned as Salvini’s has risen, warned against “an improvised majority that exists only in parliament and not in the country.”
Italian publisher and commentator Alberto Castelvecchi believes Zingaretti and M5S leader Luigi Di Maio will cobble together some kind of government, saying the prospect of a snap election was receding. But Castelvecchi said this would just be a delay.
“The question is not if we go to elections, but when and how,” he said.
Meanwhile, Salvini and his lieutenants are laying the groundwork for a national poll, one they intend to fight on an uncompromising “Italy First” agenda that will challenge the EU’s financial rules the Lega leader says are too restrictive.
Midweek, one of Salvini’s advisers, Claudio Borghi, raised the prospect of a Lega-led government dumping the euro, calling it “the wrong currency for Italy.”
He added, “It has impeded Italy’s growth, puts us at a competitive disadvantage and deprives the country of the freedom to choose our own fiscal policies.”
