Author Archives: News Sources

Hate preachers to be held in separate prison units in England and Wales to curb radicalisation

The Guardian reports: Influential hate preachers will be held in separate prison units after an official inquiry found inmates were acting as “self-styled emirs” behind bars.

A government-ordered review into radicalisation in jails has concluded that some charismatic prisoners exerted a “radicalising influence” over fellow Muslims. It also claimed that some have attempted to engineer segregation, encouraged aggressive conversions to Islam, and been involved in the intimidation of prison imams.

The claims have emerged in a review led by former prison governor Ian Acheson and commissioned last year by then justice secretary Michael Gove. Such concerns in Whitehall were disclosed by the Guardian in February.

Its conclusions will overturn 50 years of dispersing the most dangerous prisoners across the prisons system. Critics have previously warned that such a move could also provide a focal point for public protests and claims of a “British Guantanamo”. [Continue reading…]

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‘I am sorry’: Islamist apologises for destroying Timbuktu mausoleums

The Guardian reports: The first defendant to plead guilty at the international criminal court has apologised to Mali and to mankind for destroying religious monuments in the ancient city of Timbuktu.

Ahmad al-Mahdi admitted directing the destruction of nine mausoleums and a mosque door in 2012, when Timbuktu was controlled by rebels and members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

At the opening of his trial for war crimes in The Hague, he expressed his “deep regret” to the people of Timbuktu, to whom the monuments had been of great religious and cultural importance.

“I seek their forgiveness and I ask them to look at me as a son who has lost his way,” he said. “Those who forgive me will be rewarded by the almighty. I would like to make them a solemn promise that this was the first and the last wrongful act I will ever commit.”

Wearing a grey suit, blue shirt and tie and glasses, his long curly hair slicked back, Mahdi said he drew on Islamic teachings to enter his guilty plea. “We need to speak justice even to ourselves. We have to be truthful, even if it burns our own hands,” he said.

“All the charges brought against me are accurate and correct. I am really sorry, and I regret all the damage that my actions have caused.” [Continue reading…]

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Climate change will mean the end of national parks as we know them

Oliver Milman writes: After a century of shooing away hunters, tending to trails and helping visitors enjoy the wonder of the natural world, the guardians of America’s most treasured places have been handed an almost unimaginable new job – slowing the all-out assault climate change is waging against national parks across the nation.

As the National Parks Service (NPS) has charted the loss of glaciers, sea level rise and increase in wildfires spurred by rising temperatures in recent years, the scale of the threat to US heritage across the 412 national parks and monuments has become starkly apparent.

As the National Parks Service turns 100 this week, their efforts to chart and stem the threat to the country’s history faces a daunting task. America’s grand symbols and painstakingly preserved archaeological sites are at risk of being winnowed away by the crashing waves, wildfires and erosion triggered by warming temperatures.

The Statue of Liberty is at “high exposure” risk from increasingly punishing storms. A national monument dedicated to abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who will be enshrined on a new $20 note, could be eaten away by rising tides in Maryland. The land once walked by Pocahontas and Captain John Smith in Jamestown, the first English settlement in the US, is surrounded by waters rising at twice the global average and may be beyond rescue.

These threats are the latest in a pile of identified calamities to befall national parks and monuments due to climate change. Receding ice, extreme heat and acidifying oceans are morphing America’s landscapes and coasts at a faster pace than at any time in human history. [Continue reading…]

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More than a third of all casualties in Aleppo are now children

Robin Wright writes: Last month, four newborns in incubators fought for their lives in a small hospital in Aleppo, the besieged Syrian city. Then a bomb hit the hospital and cut off power — and oxygen to the incubators. The babies suffocated. In a joint letter to President Obama this month, fifteen doctors described the infants’ deaths: “Gasping for air, their lives ended before they had really begun.” The doctors are among the last few in the eastern part of Aleppo, the historic former commercial center where a hundred thousand children are now trapped.

“Young children are sometimes brought into our emergency rooms so badly injured that we have to prioritize those with better chances, or simply don’t have the equipment to help them,” the doctors wrote. Only a trickle of food is making it through a land blockade imposed by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. “Whether we live or die seems to be dependent on the ebbs and flows of the battlefield,” the doctors said. “For five years, we have faced death from above” — bombs — “on a daily basis. But we now face death from all around.”

More than a third of all casualties in Aleppo are now kids, according to Save the Children. Among them is Omran Daqneesh, the toddler with the moppish Beatles haircut whose picture captivated the world this week. He was shown covered with blood and dust after being dug from the debris of a bombing in Syria on Thursday. Rescuers placed him, alone, on an orange seat in an ambulance. His stunned, dazed expression mirrored the trauma of a war-ravaged generation. (On Saturday, we learned that Omran’s older brother Ali, who was ten, had died from wounds sustained in the attack.)[Continue reading…]

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Trump’s empire: A maze of debts and opaque ties

The New York Times reports: On the campaign trail, Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has sold himself as a businessman who has made billions of dollars and is beholden to no one.

But an investigation by The New York Times into the financial maze of Mr. Trump’s real estate holdings in the United States reveals that companies he owns have at least $650 million in debt — twice the amount than can be gleaned from public filings he has made as part of his bid for the White House. The Times’s inquiry also found that Mr. Trump’s fortunes depend deeply on a wide array of financial backers, including one he has cited in attacks during his campaign.

For example, an office building on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, of which Mr. Trump is part owner, carries a $950 million loan. Among the lenders: the Bank of China, one of the largest banks in a country that Mr. Trump has railed against as an economic foe of the United States, and Goldman Sachs, a financial institution he has said controls Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, after it paid her $675,000 in speaking fees.

Real estate projects often involve complex ownership and mortgage structures. And given Mr. Trump’s long real estate career in the United States and abroad, as well as his claim that his personal wealth exceeds $10 billion, it is safe to say that no previous major party presidential nominee has had finances nearly as complicated.

As president, Mr. Trump would have substantial sway over monetary and tax policy, as well as the power to make appointments that would directly affect his own financial empire. He would also wield influence over legislative issues that could have a significant impact on his net worth, and would have official dealings with countries in which he has business interests. [Continue reading…]

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The toxic effects of Trumpism will outlast this presidential campaign

In an editorial, the New York Times says: Donald Trump is heading to November like a certain zeppelin heading to New Jersey, in a darkening sky that crackles with electricity. He is fighting crosswinds and trying new tacks — hiring the head of Breitbart News to run his campaign, trying on a new emotion (regret) in a speech on Thursday night, promising to talk more this week about immigration, his prime subject. There’s still no telling what will happen when the gasbag reaches the mooring.

It could be that the polls are right, and Mr. Trump will go down in flames. But while that will solve an immediate problem, a larger one will remain. The message of hatred and paranoia that is inciting millions of voters will outlast the messenger. The toxic effects of Trumpism will have to be addressed.

The most obvious damage has already been done — to the debate over immigration, a subject that is America’s pride but that can also show the country at its worst. Mr. Trump’s solution is to build an unbuildable border wall and force 11 million people out of the country, while letting millions of “good ones” back in. Or maybe not — now he says he wants to bar immigrants from most of the world, except for a few who pass religious and ideological tests. “Extreme vetting,” he calls it, bringing the Alien and Sedition Acts and McCarthyism into the reality-TV age.

Yes, Mr. Trump speaks frontier gibberish. Outright nativism remains a fringe American phenomenon. But there is no shortage of mainstream politicians who have endorsed his message by endorsing the Republican nominee. Anyone hoping to build a serious solution to immigration after this election will have to confront the unworkable ideas and vicious emotions that Mr. Trump, with many enablers, has dragged into the open. [Continue reading…]

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By masterfully playing the troll, Trump has placed himself within reach of the Oval Office

David Sax writes: According to Chuck Dueck, a senior vice-president at icuc.social, a company that manages the online presence for hundreds of companies and organizations, trolls fall into four different categories: those who deliberately practice harassment, those who enjoy being outrageous and causing havoc, those who love to argue, and those too stupid to know they are trolls. Dueck believes Trump is most like the second and third. “He has a long career of making outrageous statements designed to get attention,” Dueck says. “He now has the biggest stage to do it from. I believe he enjoys tossing out a statement and watching the reaction.”

Back in July, Trump tweeted out an image of Hilary Clinton’s face in front of a pile of cash, with the words “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” stamped on a red, six-pointed star. In response to the wave of accusations of anti-semitism, Trump didn’t apologize or attempt to put the event behind him. In true troll fashion, he chose to encourage the conflict instead of resolve it – first by saying it was a “sheriff’s star”, and then posting a photo of a six-sided star on a Frozen children’s book, asking whether this was also a Star of David.

Time and again, his outrageous comments and statements have seized the narrative away from his rivals, distracted the media with the antics of insults and bizarre statements, and steered the conversation away from substantive issues. Think back to the Republication primaries. Can you remember a single policy proposal debated by the candidates? Probably not. But who can forget Trump’s promise to build a giant wall with Mexico and block Muslim immigration, or his schoolyard nicknames for “Little Marco” and “Lyin’ Ted”? By playing the troll, Trump has masterfully dominated the news cycle and placed himself within reach of the Oval Office.

Trolling works for Trump because it is fundamentally a manipulation of our emotions. “Trolling is crafted by people who believe it is their job to figure out exactly what people’s buttons are, then press those buttons,” says Jessamyn West, a veteran community manager who now works at the Internet Open Archives Library.

Trump’s trolling is a high-impact, low-output strategy. A single tweet or comment can generate days worth of free publicity, and keep him the central character in the race. Like all skilled trolls, Trump has proven masterful at inspiring his followers to do the bulk of his dirty work. According to West, the best trolls enter a conversation, make a comment or two, set off a fight, and step back as other trolls emerge to sling punches. Trolls aren’t warriors, they’re instigators. They know how to imply something racist, hateful or misogynistic, blowing rhetorical dog whistles that bring out more blatantly offensive supporters while allowing themselves deniability. “There’s an art to this,” West says. “It’s like a flaming bag of dog shit on someone’s doorstep.” Even if you know who likely put it there, it’s not like you can dust it for prints. [Continue reading…]

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Aleppo’s underground orphanage offers a haven for children bereaved by war

The Guardian reports: Two floors underground, Aleppo’s luckier orphans sleep as safely as anyone can in a city at war, though they are jolted awake regularly by bombs ripping apart the streets above them.

Watching over them are Asmar Halabi and his wife, who knows in intimate, painful detail the damage explosives can do, because she still carries injuries picked up in an airstrike on a school two years ago.

The suffering of the Syrian city’s children, who have lived through years of bombing, was thrust back into the headlines this week by a photograph of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, bereft and bloodied in the back of an ambulance.

His parents were also pulled alive from the rubble of their home, and the family have since been reunited. But as Russian airstrikes and government barrel bombs tear apart rebel-held east Aleppo street by street, many children endure even greater shock and loss.

Halabi’s 50 charges at the Moumayazoun (Outstanding Guys) orphanage are some of the most vulnerable individuals left in the city. The orphanage moved below ground when relentless bombardment became too much for normal life to continue, and it now provides a subterranean haven.

The children range in age from two to 14. Their parents have been killed or become mentally ill, or have been snatched away in some other cruel fashion by a conflict now moving towards its sixth year. [Continue reading…]

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Syrian government and Russia are accused of using napalm-like incendiary bombs

The New York Times reports: Syrian government aircraft hit the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Daraya with incendiary bombs for the third straight day on Wednesday, according to local council members, who said the weapons were packed with substances akin to napalm.

Incendiary bombs emit bright light that resembles fireworks and ignite persistent fires, heating to temperatures up to 10 times the boiling point of water.

Usually armed with thermite or phosphorus, which can cause horrific burns like those inflicted by napalm in American bombardments during the Vietnam War, the weapons are increasingly being used in attacks on rebel-held areas, especially in the contested northern city of Aleppo, according to Syrian opposition activists and human rights groups that are calling for an end to the practice.

And the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, Russia, may also be using the weapons in its own airstrikes, Human Rights Watch contends, citing footage from Russian state-run television that showed the bombs clearly labeled on an attack aircraft in Syria, and similar casings found at attack sites.

Incendiary weapons have been used at least 18 times in the past nine weeks, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued this week, mostly in and around Aleppo, as well as in Idlib Province. The group said that activists and residents had reported at least 40 other cases, but that it had confirmed only 18 through video footage and other evidence. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS is still holding nearly 2,000 Yazidi women as slaves

Vice News reports: The Islamic state still holds nearly 2000 Iraqi women as slaves, most of them Yazidis, and more than 300,000 Yazidis are still displaced almost two years after the group swept into the northern Iraqi district of Sinjar, according to a new United Nations report.

Sinjar district was home to more than 300,000 people — mostly Yazidis but also other ethnic minorities — before August 3, 2014, when Islamic State conquered the district, and at least 200,000 people fled north toward the safety of Kurdistan. Approximately 55,000 others fled to the barren slopes of Mt. Sinjar, which Islamic State surrounded. As temperatures passed 100 degrees, dozens perished before US airstrikes and Kurdish Peshmerga could open a corridor to allow the civilians to escape on August 8.

The UN now estimates that between 2,500 and 5,500 Yazidis were killed during Islamic State’s offensive and subsequent occupation of the area’s towns and villages. The group also abducted around 6,300 Yazidis, including 3,537 women and 2,859 men, and while many escaped, about 3,800 remained in captivity as of May 2016, the UN reported, including 1,935 women. [Continue reading…]

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Once again political murders are playing a prominent role in the Kremlin’s foreign policy

The New York Times reports: From a certain perspective, certainly the Kremlin’s, Vladimir Kara-Murza’s behavior in Washington could be seen as treasonous, a brazen betrayal of his homeland.

In a series of public meetings on Capitol Hill, Mr. Kara-Murza, a leader in the Russian opposition, urged American lawmakers to expand economic sanctions against the Russian government under a law known as the Magnitsky Act. That would hasten political change in Russia, he argued.

Back in Moscow a month later, in May 2015, the changes Mr. Kara-Murza detected were going on in his own body. Midway through a meeting with fellow dissidents, beads of sweat inexplicably dotted his forehead. His stomach churned.

“It all went so fast,” he recalled. “In the space of about 20 minutes, I went from feeling completely normal to having a rapid heart rate, really high blood pressure, to sweating and vomiting all over the place, and then I lost consciousness.” He had ingested a poison, doctors told him after he emerged from a weeklong coma, though they could find no identifiable trace of it.

While Mr. Kara-Murza survived, few others in his position have proved as lucky. He said he was certain he had been the target of a security service poisoning. Used extensively in the Soviet era, political murders are again playing a prominent role in the Kremlin’s foreign policy, the most brutal instrument in an expanding repertoire of intimidation tactics intended to silence or otherwise intimidate critics at home and abroad. [Continue reading…]

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What is extremist belief? An answer from medieval Islamic philosophy

By Anthony Booth, University of Sussex

Every time we are shocked by a new terrorist atrocity, or when a surge in hate crimes takes hold in a country, we lament the malign grip of extremism. But what exactly do we mean when we say that someone holds extreme beliefs? And what exactly is wrong with extreme beliefs? Frankly, there has been little work in western philosophy to tackle these questions. Luckily, however, we can look to the work of a medieval Islamic philosopher – Abu Nasr al-Farabi – to help us find some answers.

Let’s consider two possible models for conceptualising extreme belief. One we might call the “defective belief model” which has become the tacit consensus view of the contemporary West. The other is the “over-belief model” favoured by al-Farabi, one of the great figures of the Islamic golden age of medieval philosophy, who lived in Baghdad in the 9th and 10th centuries. Al-Farabi is well known for his contributions to logic – his contemporaries gave him the moniker “the Second Master”, suggesting that only Aristotle surpassed his logical prowess. In Europe, he was better known as Alfarabius.

I want to make some conceptual points against the Western model of extremism and some in favour of al-Farabi’s.

Let’s begin by taking a look at the idea of defective belief. Under a version of this model, someone has extremist beliefs when they believe propositions that are morally bad to believe, such as that racism is permissible, or that it is permissible to target non-combatants during war.

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Why has offshore wind technology been so slow to catch on in the United States?

Madeleine Thomas writes: The first offshore wind farm in the country, a $300 million project more than seven years in the making, will open this fall off the coast of Rhode Island.

Deepwater Wind, an offshore wind developer, is spearheading the five-turbine farm near Block Island, less than 20 miles south off the mainland. The facility will power most of the island, cut local electric rates by 40 percent, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40,000 tons a year. The wind farm — — the first of its kind in United States waters — — could power as many as 17,000 homes.

“I look at Block Island as sort of the key to unlocking the code of how to do offshore wind in the U.S.,” Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski told the Associated Press.

There may be merit to Grybowski’s claim, but, overall, offshore wind in the U.S. is slow-going. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has already approved 11 commercial wind leases throughout the Atlantic, but as the Associated Press reports, projects off the coasts of Cape Cod (which actually would have been the first in the country, if successful) and Long Island both stalled due to legal hurdles or delayed state votes. In Europe, offshore wind is a thriving industry, with more than 3,000 wind turbines installed across 11 countries. [Continue reading…]

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Trump hands his campaign to the ‘alt-right’ movement

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Christian Science Monitor reports: The appointment of Breitbart news chief Stephen Bannon to head Donald Trump’s presidential campaign this week marks the official entree of the so-called “alt-right” into the Republicans’ top campaign.

For the Trump campaign, Mr. Bannon is an experienced political street fighter who is well-versed in the sharp-edged, populist message that served the candidate well in the Republican primaries.

Mr. Trump’s tapping of the alt-right could help solidify his base by letting Trump be Trump, and potentially propel him to hit Hillary Clinton’s weak points harder.

But critics say that Bannon’s hiring resonates far beyond the Trump campaign in troubling ways. It marks a worrisome marriage of the Republican Party with an Internet culture that, they say, peddles in white identity, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and Clinton conspiracies.

In short, it doubles down on a largely white voting bloc that, in the words of Brendan O’Neill, a commentator for the conservative Spectator magazine in Britain, is “convinced the world is one big lefty, feminist plot to ruin your average white dude’s life.” [Continue reading…]

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How immigrant athletes at the Olympics keep on beating Trumpism

Ben Geman writes: On Saturday night, the British distance runner Mo Farah will try and become the first athlete to sweep the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races at consecutive Olympics since Finland’s Lasse Viren won both in 1972 and 1976. Farah has already found a heart-stopping way to pay homage to the Finn, albeit accidentally. Viren famously fell mid-race during the 10,000-meter in 1972 but managed to get up and still win. Forty-four years later, in the middle of last Saturday’s 10,000 in Rio, Farah got tangled up with the American runner Galen Rupp, his friend and sometime training partner, and went crashing onto the track. It briefly looked as though Farah’s race was over. But he sprang up, rejoined the pack, and won in the same way he’s dominated the biggest international races for a half-decade: by separating himself from runners still in the mix and entering the final lap with a blistering closing kick.

Farah is tangled up with forces off the track too. He’s an immigrant who came to England from Somalia in order to escape conflict there at the age of eight. Time and again in recent years, the 33-year-old Farah, a devout Muslim, has prayed on the track and draped himself in the British flag after crossing the line for wins on the biggest stage, including at London’s 2012 games and then biennial World Championships in Russia and China in 2013 and 2015.

Still, Farah has faced claims that he’s not truly a British athlete throughout his career. In an ugly incident last year after Farah set the European record in the half-marathon, the man he took it from, Spain’s Fabian Roncero, dismissed the feat, reportedly claiming that an athlete “born in Somalia is Somali forever.” And this year’s Olympics are unfolding at a very different and even more fraught political moment than Farah’s earlier wins, arriving just weeks after anti-immigrant sentiment helped elicit Britain’s exit from the European Union. Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump has made condemning immigrants a pillar of his campaign to capture the GOP nomination and the White House. [Continue reading…]

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Feds investigate Manafort firm as part of Ukraine probe

CNN reports: FBI and Justice Department prosecutors are conducting an investigation into possible US ties to alleged corruption of the former pro-Russian president of Ukraine, including the work of Paul Manafort’s firm, according to multiple US law enforcement officials.

The investigation is broad and is looking into whether US companies and the financial system were used to aid alleged corruption by the party of former president Viktor Yanukovych.

Manafort, who resigned as chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign Friday, has not been the focus of the probe, according to the law enforcement officials. The investigation is ongoing and prosecutors haven’t ruled anything out, the officials said.

The probe is also examining the work of other firms linked to the former Ukrainian government, including that of the Podesta Group, the lobbying and public relations company run by Tony Podesta, brother of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. [Continue reading…]

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Continued inaction in the face of an abomination shaped by Assad, Iran, and Russia is exacting too high a price

Fred Hof writes: No one in the history of the Syrian conflict has counseled Mr. Obama to invade and occupy Syria, fighting Iranian forces in the process. Fifty-one conscience-stricken State Department officers recently pressed upon him a variation of what others, in and out of government, have urged him for years to do: use limited military means to exact a price for mass homicide in an effort to deter it. For years the president has said no. The consequences for Syrians, their neighbors, and European allies have been staggering, as a country that began the war with 23 million people gradually empties itself. And ISIS — the author of heinous atrocities abroad — is in large measure a consequence of Assad regime mass homicide unchecked by the civilized world.

Yet whenever presented with modest proposals for measured pushback, Mr. Obama and his communications mavens deploy an army of straw men to counterattack. They have exploited the understandable, if misguided reluctance of Americans to do anything at all of a military nature in the Middle East after the experience of Iraq.

ISIS — partly the result of Assad-induced state failure in Syria — is the exception. But Assad himself — a protégé and employee of Iran — has been spared entirely, even though a straight line runs from his practice of mass homicide in Syria to the ‘Brexit’ vote in the United Kingdom and the rise of Vladimir Putin lookalikes in the politics of the West. Iran is the key to understanding why the Obama administration immolated its own reputation in the 2013 ‘red line’ fiasco, and why it continues to look the other way while Assad and his enablers enjoy an unrestrained crime spree. [Continue reading…]

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