‘Don’t beat us, just shoot us’: Kashmiris allege violent army crackdown – BBC News
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Category: International Affairs,
Evelyn Hernandez, El Salvador rape victim, at center of controversial abortion trial acquitted
In April 2016, Hernández was found on the floor of her bathroom drenched in blood. She was taken to a local emergency room in her hometown of El Carmen, roughly 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) east of the capital by her mother and a neighbor.
Doctors who examined her saw signs of a delivery but no baby and reported her to the authorities. When local officials arrived at her home five hours later, they found the newborn dead in a septic tank.
..”It seems the judicial system is starting to understand that stillbirths are not crimes, they are obstetric emergencies,” Guillen told CNN. “People in El Salvador now understand that the law, as it stands right now, criminalizes women in poverty.”
…Most of the women who have faced criminal charges for abortions in El Salvador come from poor rural backgrounds, and many suffered miscarriages or had obstetric complications because they weren’t able to get regular checkups due to lack of resources.
…Prosecution witnesses presented evidence that suggested that the baby died from complications during the delivery.
…Prosecutors had asked for the longer sentence during her retrial, even after evidence of a stillbirth was presented by their witnesses.
Evelyn Hernandez, El Salvador rape victim, at center of controversial abortion trial acquitted – CNN
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Italy passes law to send unsold food to charities instead of dumpsters
Other countries such as France are nudging businesses in the form of a steep fine.
Italy is taking a different approach. Instead of imposing penalties, the country will give garbage collection tax breaks to businesses that take part in the initiative. All food donated by businesses has to be recorded so the tax break will be easy to implement.
…Giving away “food waste” might strike some as denigrating to the poor and homeless, because it suggests that they don’t deserve quality food. But the vast majority of “food waste” around the world is perfectly edible by the time it hits a dumpster.
For instance, if white rice is mis-labeled basmati rice, it’s food waste. If a vegetable is misshapen it’s food waste. If a cereal box has a tear, food waste. A can with a ripped label also food waste. A bruised fruit, yup, food waste.
…Each part of the supply chain calls for a different approach to reducing waste, but the lowest hanging fruit is clearly distribution to consumers. This food has arrived at an organized location and is constantly monitored and prevented from going bad. Encouraging businesses to mark excess food for delivery to charities instead of dumpsters is an easy fix.
Italy passes law to send unsold food to charities instead of dumpsters
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Jammu and Kashmir: the history behind India’s new crackdown on the disputed region.
While India was part of the British Empire, Jammu and Kashmir was one of the many princely states that made up the colonial territory.
…Singh, a Hindu ruler of a Muslim-majority state, initially desired that the Jammu and Kashmir become an independent neutral region between India and the new nation of Pakistan. However, an uprising in the state’s western region, aided by Pakistani raiders and primarily targeting Singh, forced him to cede sovereignty to India in exchange for military aid.
…As a concession to Kashmiris who bristled under Indian rule, this article exempted Jammu and Kashmir from the rest of the Indian Constitution, established the state’s own Constitution, forbade outsiders from buying property in the region, exempted the state from laws passed by the Indian Parliament, and allowed the state to create its own laws except those regarding foreign policy, defense, and communications.
…India has interfered with the state’s politics from the very first day. The provisions of Article 370 were meant to be applied to Jammu and Kashmir by an established constituent assembly—and the constituent assembly was dissolved in 1957, leaving the institutional framework for the law uncertain.
…The state also became the site of several clashes during India’s multiple wars with both Pakistan and China, as all these countries attempted to grab more Kashmiri land for themselves. Part of what spurred this desire for Kashmiri territory is the water: The Indus river system is split between India and Pakistan, and the water supply’s availability is incredibly important to both countries.
…India often shut down telecommunications within the region and plunged it into darkness much as it’s doing right now. Some militant groups carried out terrorist attacks in India, including the 2001 Parliament shooting and the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
…With this move, more than just reinforcing its control of Kashmir, the Indian government now seems to be working toward totally reshaping the state in its own self-glorious vision by taking away the self-determination of its citizens.
Jammu and Kashmir: the history behind India’s new crackdown on the disputed region.
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Kashmir dispute: Pakistan downgrades ties with India
Indian-administered Kashmir has been on lockdown since the Indian government decided on Monday to strip the region of its special constitutional status.
Phone networks and the internet have been cut off since Sunday evening.
Tens of thousands of troops have been patrolling the streets.
Instances of protest and stone-throwing have been reported, despite the communications blackout and a curfew.
Kashmiris in other parts of the country said that they were unable to get through to their families. Local leaders have also been detained.
…Pakistan is suspending all trade between the two countries.
It is expelling India’s high commissioner (the equivalent of an ambassador) from Islamabad. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s newly-appointed envoy, Moin-ul-Haq, was yet to start his role but now will not move to Delhi.
…Many Kashmiris think revoking Article 370 is an attempt to change the territory’s demographic character, by allowing non-Kashmiris to buy land there. Before now, Indians from outside the state could be barred from settling or buying property.
While the current insurgency began in 1989, violence surged again in 2016, with the death of a young militant leader, Burhan Wani. Last year, more than 500 people were killed – including civilians, security forces and militants – the highest such toll in a decade.
Kashmir dispute: Pakistan downgrades ties with India – BBC News
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Hong Kong protests: Police fire tear gas at activists
Beijing and the Chinese army have issued stern warnings about the unrest.
Two months of demonstrations sparked by a controversial extradition bill show no signs of abating, with both sides hardening their stance.
Although the government has now suspended the bill, which would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, demonstrators want the bill fully withdrawn.
Their demands have broadened to include calls for more democracy and for Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam to resign.
…Saturday’s march comes after a group of civil servants – ordered to be politically neutral – joined demonstrations in their thousands on Friday.
The rally followed the publication of an anonymous letter on Facebook complaining about “extreme oppression” and listing five key demands – the complete withdrawal of the extradition bill; waiving charges against those arrested; an end to descriptions of protests as “rioting”; an independent inquiry into the unrest; and resuming political reforms.
…More than 40 activists appeared in court on Wednesday, charged with rioting after protests last Sunday turned violent.
They could face up to 10 years behind bars if convicted.
Tensions rose further when the military – which has not yet intervened in the unrest – posted a video on social media network Weibo showing soldiers conducting anti-riot drills.
Hong Kong protests: Police fire tear gas at activists – BBC News
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India revokes disputed Kashmir’s special status with rush decree
Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament on Monday that the president had signed a decree abolishing Article 370 of the constitution that gave a measure of autonomy to the Muslim-majority Himalayan region.
…Regional parties in Jammu and Kashmir had earlier called attempts to revoke Article 370 an aggression against the 7 million people living in the disputed region.
The law dates to 1927, when an order by the administration of the-then princely state of Jammu and Kashmir gave the state’s subjects exclusive hereditary rights.
Two months after India won independence from the British rule in August 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, signed a Treaty of Accession for the state to join the rest of the union, formalised in Article 370 of the Indian constitution.
Further discussions culminated in the 1952 Delhi Agreement, a presidential order that extended Indian citizenship to the residents of the state but left the maharaja’s privileges for residents intact.
…Critics of such a measure say that in doing away with Article 370, the government hopes to change India-administered Kashmir’s Muslim-majority demographics by allowing in a flood of new Hindu residents.
Shah said the government also decided to split the state into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir, which will have a legislature, and Ladakh, which will be ruled directly by the central government without a legislature of its own.
…On Sunday, parts of India-administered Kashmir were placed under lockdown and local politicians reportedly arrested amid growing tensions following a massive deployment of troops by the Indian government.
…The measures came after the Indian government moved about 10,000 troops to the region last week, followed by an unprecedented order asking tourists and Hindu pilgrims to leave the Himalayan valley.
India revokes disputed Kashmir’s special status with rush decree | India News | Al Jazeera
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Iran seizes another foreign oil tanker
Seven sailors were detained.
No details about the crew’s nationalities or who owns the ship were given. The ship was reportedly seized near Farsi Island, a small, barren enclave in the Persian Gulf.
It is the second ship in less than a month seized by Iran for allegedly smuggling oil.
Iran seizes another foreign oil tanker
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The Five-Year-Old Who Was Detained at the Border and Persuaded to Sign Away Her Rights | The New Yorker
A month earlier, the Trump Administration had announced, amid public outcry over its systemic separation of migrant families at the border, that it would halt the practice. But, at a packed processing hub, Christian was taken from Noehmi and placed in a cage with toddlers. Noehmi remained in a cold holding cell, clutching Helen. Soon, she recalled, a plainclothes official arrived and informed her that she and Helen would be separated. “No!” Noehmi cried. “The girl is under my care! Please!”
Noehmi said that the official told her, “Don’t make things too difficult,” and pulled Helen from her arms. “The girl will stay here,” he said, “and you’ll be deported.”
…At the time of her apprehension, in fact, Helen checked a box on a line that read, “I do request an immigration judge,” asserting her legal right to have her custody reviewed. But, in early August, an unknown official handed Helen a legal document, a “Request for a Flores Bond Hearing” …which was filled out with assistance from officials. There is a checked box next to a line that says, “I withdraw my previous request for a Flores bond hearing.” Beneath that line, the five-year-old signed her name in wobbly letters.
…“Well, where is Helen, the five-year-old?”
The judge, Delgado recalled, seemed startled. Both he and the government prosecutor had no idea that Helen existed, let alone where she was being held.
…Now stage three has commenced—one in which separations are done quietly, LUPE’s Tania Chavez asserts, and in which reunifications can be mysteriously stymied. …An uncounted number of separated children in shelters and foster care fall outside the lawsuit’s current purview—including many like Helen, who arrived with a grandparent or other guardian, rather than with a parent. Many such children have been misclassified, in government paperwork, as “unaccompanied minors,” due to a sloppy process that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General recently critiqued. …Through misclassification, many kids have largely disappeared from public view, and from official statistics.
…The completion of Noehmi’s background check was delayed for unexplained reasons.
On August 17th, Helen was transferred to a foster home in San Antonio. “I feared, did they give Helen away?” Noehmi told me; she worried about the prospect of adoption.
…On September 7th, LUPE was told that Helen would finally be released, nearly two months after she was taken from Noehmi. …“Then she wasn’t released.” ….LUPE’s team adjusted the petition to address a greater number of O.R.R. officials, each of whom received a personal e-mail every time a person signed. …Then, that Monday, Noehmi and Jeny got a phone call: they should be at their local airport at 6:20 p.m.
..The shelter sent a small black backpack that Helen had left behind. It held Helen’s legal paperwork, including the document that the five-year-old had been told to sign, withdrawing her request to see a judge.
Trump transition adviser convicted on foreign-agent charges
A federal jury on Tuesday convicted Bijan Rafiekian, a former business partner of Michael Flynn, on a pair of foreign-agent felony charges stemming from work the two men did for Turkish interests during the final months of the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.
…A belated courtroom victory for special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated the $600,000 lobbying and public relations contract at the heart of the case and then handed the matter off to other federal prosecutors after Flynn’s guilty plea to a false-statement charge in 2017.
…“Today’s verdict should stand as a deterrent to any malign foreign influence that undermines the integrity of our political processes,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said. “Through misrepresentations in his FARA filing, Mr. Rafiekian attempted to deceive the public and influence key leaders on behalf of Turkey. The Department of Justice treats these crimes with the gravity that they deserve.”
The Iranian-American businessman, who was Flynn’s main partner in his short-lived consulting firm, also served as an adviser to the Trump transition team on national security issues.
…It’s unclear how prosecutors’ decision not to call Flynn will affect his ultimate sentence.
Other disclosures at the Rafiekian trial could also impact Flynn’s sentencing, including a startling but cryptic statement that prosecutors issued just before the trial, indicating that the U.S. government has various kinds of undisclosed, classified evidence that the Turkish government reached out to Flynn through Alptekin “because of Michael Flynn’s relationship with an ongoing presidential campaign.”
…It seems possible the judge sentencing Flynn will view the verdicts as confirming that Flynn was effectively on the payroll of the Turkish government while working on Trump’s presidential bid.
Trump transition adviser convicted on foreign-agent charges – POLITICO
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Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
While changes in the travel industry have tended to pressure night trains off the market, it’s clear that there is still some appetite for them among travelers. When Germany’s Deutsche Bahn halted its night services in 2017, Austrian Federal Railways took over some of the key routes. The takeover has proved to be a success, with passenger numbers on the services …rising from 1.4 million to 1.6 million between 2017 and 2018, a rise in profits, and talk of expansion. Meanwhile, well-established leisure services such as the London-to-Scotland Caledonian Sleeper continue to thrive.
The overnight train services remain popular because many people actually like them. The duration of travel, of course, is usually far longer than by plane, even when layovers and security are factored in, but there are other compensations. Generally scheduled to leave late evening and arrive before the working day begins, night trains offer the possibility of sleep and more leisurely travel compared to an early-morning rush to the airport. They can also be reasonably priced: On the Vienna-to-Berlin night service, for example, a one-way ticket with a reclining sleeper seat starts at €29 ($32.50), a couchette (a four- or six-person compartment whose bunks fold down into comfortable seating during the day) at €49 ($55), and a single-berth sleeper with private toilet and shower at €139 ($159). If the trip saves you the cost of a hotel room, many people seem to be noting, that’s not a bad deal.
So while the outlook seemed bleak just a few years ago, Sweden’s plan arrives at a time when the sector’s fortunes seem to be brightening once more.
…Getting more people on the rails can only have a positive effect in reducing the carbon footprint of international mobility.
Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains – CityLab
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After Cheeto’s ‘send her back’ chants, Pelosi and Omar visit Africa together
Omar is visiting Ghana this week along with Pelosi and the 13 members of the Congressional Black Caucus as they observe the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in America.
..The group is visiting slave castles and meeting with Ghana’s parliament during the trip.
…Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) Thursday posted a picture of herself alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on their current trip to Africa.
In the tweet, Omar joked about people who have chanted “send her back,” saying Pelosi “didn’t just make arrangements to send me back, she went back with me.”
…Trump singled out “the squad,” a nickname for Omar and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), after Pelosi in an interview cast doubt on the lawmakers’ influence.
Since Trump lashed out at them, though, Pelosi has voiced her support for the women and met with Ocasio-Cortez in private to address the tensions within the Democratic Party.
After ‘send her back’ chants, Pelosi and Omar visit Africa together | TheHill
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Rep. Cheney Accuses Tribes of “Destroying our Western Way of Life” Over Grizzly Protections
Removing protections from the bear, revered as sacred to a multitude of tribes, would have left the grizzly vulnerable to high-dollar trophy hunts and lifted leasing restrictions on some 34,375 square miles. Extractive industry, livestock and logging interests are among those desirous of capitalizing on the area, a region comprised of tribal treaty, reserved rights and ceded lands.
…“I would remind the Congresswoman that at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition an estimated 100,000 grizzly bears roamed from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. That was all Indian Country. Now there are fewer than 2,000 grizzly bears and our people live in Third World conditions on meager reservations in the poorest counties in the US. Does she really want to talk about ‘destroying’ a ‘way of life’?” asked Rodgers.
…Tribal Nations, including the Oglala Sioux Tribe which petitioned for a Congressional inquiry into the influence of multi-national fossil-fuel corporations on FWS’s grizzly delisting decision, previously exposed the role of extractive industry in the process. USFWS engaged multinational oil and gas services group, Amec Foster Wheeler, for the peer review of its grizzly delisting rule that tribes and environmental groups deconstructed in court. Amec Foster Wheeler appointed Halliburton executive Jonathan Lewis as CEO in the same timeframe as USFWS contracted the company.
“That puts ‘harmful to the ecosystem’ into its true context,” responded Rodgers. “The Cheney family’s connections to Halliburton hardly needs elaborating upon,” added Chief Stan Grier, President of the Blackfoot Confederacy Chiefs.
…“There’s more chance of her father receiving the Nobel Peace Prize than her “Grizzly Bear State Management Act” reaching the House floor,” said Rodgers of Cheney’s bill.
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Trump asylum ban is illegal, federal judge rules
“[A]liens have a statutory right to seek asylum regardless of whether they enter the United States at a designated port of entry, and defendants may not extinguish that statutory right by regulation or proclamation,” wrote District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee.
Trump asylum ban is illegal, federal judge rules – CNNPolitics
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“We are in great danger”: In Amazon, indigenous Waiapi chief is killed by illegal miners
Illegal gold miners armed with automatic weapons and shotguns, invaded the remote indigenous community of the Waiapi and murdered one of its chiefs in Brazil’s northern Amazon last week
…One of the group’s leaders, Viseni Waiapi, said in an audio message sent to NBC reporters Saturday in Portuguese.
“We are in great danger,” Viseni said. The invaders assaulted women and children and were accompanied by a pit bull as they roamed around several Waiapi villages day and night last week, using special night vision goggles to navigate the area in the dark, he said.
…While waiting two days for the police to arrive, the Waiapi sent a group of their own warriors to guard the villages being invaded and gunshots were heard along the only road that leads into Waiapi territory. By the time police arrived on Sunday, the invaders had fled into the jungle.
…This attack on Waiapi land is one of the latest in a slew of ongoing, and increasingly frequent, invasions and assaults on indigenous territories throughout Brazil by illegal miners, ranchers and loggers.
Currently, there at least 10,000 miners illegally occupying and exploiting Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami land in northern Brazil. These sorts of invasions have increased by 150 percent since Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, took power earlier this year.
…Bolsonaro has repeatedly vowed to allow commercial mining and farming on indigenous lands, which are officially reserved for indigenous people’s exclusive use under Brazil’s Constitution since 1988.
…Bolsonaro has said that indigenous peoples do not have a culture and has compared them to zoo animals. He has also said they should be assimilated into the public or integrated into the army. Years ago, he suggested that Brazil should have killed off its indigenous peoples, saying “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.”
…These invaders are committing illegal activities and should be arrested, prosecuted and fined, she said, suggesting there be paid federal employees stationed on indigenous lands to help monitor and protect vulnerable groups like the Waiapi. The community remained completely isolated until the 1970s when it was nearly annihilated by a measles outbreak spread by illegal miners who got access through a new road.
Today, there are around 1500 Waiapi living in small thatched roof villages carved out of dense rainforest in Brazil’s northern state of Amapá near French Guiana. The community attributes its resilience to having well demarcated lands, which were officially recognized by the Brazilian government in 1996, and maintaining its traditional ways of living and protecting the rainforest.
…In the meantime, Watson said indigenous groups need GPS equipment, bulletproof vests and radios for their own land defense efforts. “If we do want to save the Amazon rainforest for the benefit of humanity, we have to find better and more immediate ways of supporting the indigenous peoples.”
…Watson said the current situation in Brazil’s Amazon region has become a “war zone” in which indigenous peoples are on the front lines protecting the world’s largest rainforest, which produces 20 percent of the planet’s oxygen. “They’re paying with their lives.”
“We are in great danger”: In Amazon, indigenous Waiapi chief is killed by illegal miners
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Saudi women can now travel without consent – but this progress is fragile
Women can be granted passports and travel abroad without the consent of their male guardians. They can also register a birth, marriage or divorce. But they still cannot marry, or leave prison or a domestic violence shelter without the consent of their male guardians.
[Saudi Arabia’s “guardianship” system] stipulates that women are not legal persons, and consequently, they have to be represented by male relatives to work, marry, study, travel, and seek medical care.
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