Canceled flights strand 25 Easter Islanders for 6 months

For six months now the group has been stranded far across a vast stretch of ocean on Tahiti in French Polynesia. Mihinoa Terakauhau Pont, a 21-year-old mom who is among those stranded, is due to give birth to her second son any day now, but can't have her husband by her side because he's back home. Usually considered a tropical paradise, Tahiti has become a kind of prison to them.







AP Interview: Israeli virus czar fights outbreak, politics

When Dr. Ronni Gamzu, one of Israel’s leading public health experts, was named the country's coronavirus czar in mid-July, he was hailed as Israel's best hope for halting a fast-growing number of cases. Two months later, Israel is suffering from one of the world’s worst outbreaks and heading into a tough new lockdown. Sleeping just four hours a night, Gamzu has faced withering criticism from opponents, pushback from Israel's notoriously fractious political leadership and the stark fact that the number of new cases shows no sign of declining.







Seoul: North Korea's Kim apologizes over shooting death

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un apologized Friday over the killing of a South Korea official near the rivals’ disputed sea boundary, saying he’s “very sorry" about the “unexpected” and “unfortunate” incident, South Korean officials said Friday. It’s extremely unusual for a North Korean leader to apologize to rival South Korea on any issue. Kim’s apology was expected to ease anti-North sentiments in South Korea and mounting criticism of South Korean President Moon Jae-in over the man's death this week.







Biden's low-key campaign style worries some Democrats

The final stretch of a presidential campaign is typically a nonstop mix of travel, caffeine and adrenaline. Since his Aug. 11 selection of California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, Biden has had 22 days where he either didn't make public appearances, held only virtual fundraisers or ventured from his Delaware home solely for church, according to an Associated Press analysis of his schedules. During the same time, President Donald Trump had 24 trips that took him to 17 different states, not counting a personal visit to New York to see his ailing brother in the hospital or weekend golf outings.







In despair, protesters take to streets for Breonna Taylor

Some of them raised their fists and called out “Black lives matter!” Others tended to the letters, flowers and signs grouped together in a square in downtown Louisville. All of them said her name: Breonna Taylor. The big question for a town torn apart by Taylor’s death and the larger issue of racism in America was how to move forward.







Ginsburg is first woman to lie in state at US Capitol

Capping days of commemorations of her extraordinary life, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the first woman in American history to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Ginsburg, who died last week at age 87, also will be the first Jewish-American to lie in state and just the second Supreme Court justice. The first, Chief Justice William Howard Taft, also had been president.







GOP duo reshapes Montana politics to match Trump's vision

Steve Daines is the affable one, the smiler, a consummate salesman who parlayed his corporate success into a meteoric rise through Montana politics and a seat in the U.S. Senate. Together they form a powerful political alliance on the cusp of dominating Montana politics for years to come, pushing the state's Republican Party away from a Western brand of centrism and toward the hard-line partisan agenda of President Donald Trump. Daines, 58, is seeking a second six-year term while Gianforte, 59, is pouring millions of dollars from his private fortune into another run at the governor’s mansion.







Trump infuses politics into his choice for the Supreme Court

President Donald Trump is infusing deliberations over his coming nomination of a new Supreme Court justice with political meaning as he aims to maximize the benefit before Nov. 3 and even secure an electoral backstop should the result be contested. Now, as he closes in on a decision on her likely replacement, Trump has used the vacancy to appeal to battleground-state voters and as a rallying cry for his conservative base. Increases in mail, absentee and early voting brought about by the pandemic have already brought about a flurry of election litigation, and both Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden have assembled armies of lawyers to continue the fight once vote-counting begins.







UN implores nations to find ways to bring 300,000 stranded mariners home

The United Nations chief on Thursday implored countries to cooperate in repatriating 300,000 stranded mariners who have been stuck at sea throughout the pandemic, some of whom have not been home in a year or more. Working back-to-back 12-hour shifts, often without weekends, the merchant mariners are buckling under the strain — which could have a disastrous effect on the global supply chain, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday. Meanwhile, on land, the lack of ability to get onto the ships has stranded an equal number of mariners who would like to report for duty, Guterres said.







North Korea reportedly kills South Korean military official, burns his body

The North Korean military shockingly has lethally gunned down a South Korean government official and then charred his body. “For whatever reason, North Korea cannot justify its soldiers fatally shooting our citizen and damaging his body,” said South Korean presidential official Suh Choo-suk. It is highly unlikely North Korea will admit to any wrongdoing, further corroding already rusting bonds between the two nations, acknowledged political pundits.







American consumers are paying the price for Wall Street’s profiteering in China | Opinion

China was America’s whipping boy again this week. President Trump used his United Nations General Assembly speech to accuse and to threaten Beijing for its role in covering up the early stages of the pandemic. He said that the U.N. “must hold China accountable for their actions.”







RPT-U.N. aviation agency ICAO advises Pakistan to suspend issuance of new pilot licenses









They said it: Leaders at the virtual UN, in their own words

Here, The Associated Press takes the opposite approach and spotlights some thoughts you might not have heard — the voices of leaders speaking at the first all-virtual U.N. General Assembly leaders meeting who might not have captured the headlines and the airtime on Thursday, the third day of the 2020 debate. “It is beyond the shadow of doubt that the United Nations remains more relevant now than it was 75 years ago.”







Africa's week in pictures: 18 - 24 September 2020

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.







Benzinga Cannabis Hour: Wielding Hemp To Offset Climate Change

This week's Benzinga Cannabis Hour featured Last Prisoner Project's Steve DeAngelo; Hoban Law Group's Bob Hoban; and The People's Dispensary's Christine Delarosa (link to video below).Co-hosts Patrick Lane and Javier Hasse guided the conversation across a wide variety of topics. Here's a breakdown of what was discussed.Steve DeAngelo, Founder, Last Prisoner ProjectSteve DeAngelo is perhaps one of the most renowned leaders in the sector. Touted as the "Father of the Cannabis Industry," the LPP founder is indeed a multihyphenate: speaker-activist-advocate-entrepreneur-educator.He kicked off the conversation by making a case for a hemp-based economy."We can wear hemp clothes. We can eat hemp foods. We can start driving this hemp economy forward," he said. Why? The environment depends on it."For every hectare of hemp that we harvest, we sequester 22 tons of atmospheric carbon," he said. "If we make hempcrete out of that harvested hemp, then the hempcrete -- as it dries -- will sequester additional carbon, and once harvested, that industrial hemp crop can be used to produce anything that's currently made from cotton, or petroleum or trees."In DeAngelo's view, a hemp-based economy coupled with a plant-based diet are the two "most immediate changes" that consumers can make in their lives in order to forestall climate change.DeAngelo also stressed the importance of LPP's mission: decarcerating cannabis. The organization provides a variety of services to those who have been incarcerated with cannabis criminal records, including job training and housing so they're not forced into circumstances that may lead them back to prison."Not many Americans realize it, but we incarcerate a larger proportion of our population [more] than any country on Earth -- yes, including China, North Korea, Russia etcetera," DeAngelo said. "Five percent of the world's population, we have 25% of the world's prisoners. That's a travesty in 'the land of the free' and 'the home of the brave.'" Bob Hoban, Founder & President, Hoban Law GroupHoban provided viewers with a flavor of what his firm does best. Turns out, there are a lot of focal points. The law veteran works personally with about six or seven different clients throughout the course of the year."Most of what I do now is provide them strategy and advice," he says. He also serves as interim or active CEO to a number of different companies, aiding them in policy, strategy and investment: "Usually my last job is to replace myself."Among Hoban's practice areas include regulatory divisions around hemp and marijuana; tax and securities; as well as intellectual property, trademarks and patents. "Finally there's our global practice, which is really a hodgepodge of great lawyers who understand this space and other jurisdictions," he said.What's Hoban's biggest challenge? Finding lawyers in other jurisdictions that want to work in the cannabis space."When you approach them, they say 'Cannabis? I'm not a criminal defense attorney... that's not a real industry,'" he said. "You show them the numbers and walk through it, and then their eyes open up."Christine Delarosa, CEO & National Co-Founder, The People's DispensaryFlanked by Christmas lights (because "it's 2020... it's a dumpster fire"), Delarosa provided insight into her unique story. A pulmonary embolism from undiagnosed lupus in 2010 led her to rely on pills and opioids for treatment.By 2015, Delarosa still had trouble walking and coping with the pain. She asked: "What happens to me when I'm 60? How many pills do I take... just to be able to get up out of bed?"That's when she began looking for alternatives and discovered CBD and cannabis.A Women Grow conference "changed my world," she said. She found her regimen, stopped taking pills and has been in remission for five years thanks to cannabis treatment.The experience inspired her to launch The People's Dispensary and help others like her. "It was so important to me to make sure that people in general, but specifically people of color who have been demonized around this drug and are afraid of it, understand that this actually is an alternative way to treat your illness that's holistic, and doesn't put you addicted to opioids," she said. "And that's how we started."The Benzinga Cannabis Hour is produced every week and brings together top executives, entrepreneurs, and experts from all corners of the cannabis industry. Each show features three or more guests from a broad spectrum of expertise in cannabis.To tune in, stream the episode below; click subscribe on the official Benzinga YouTube channel; or visit BZCannabisHour.com.Cannabis Hour is also published on most major podcasting platforms, including Spotify, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Pocket Casts, and more.See more from Benzinga * Michigan Senate Passes Bills Allowing Cannabis Records To Be Expunged * WeChat Avoids Ban After Federal Judge Blocks Trump Executive Order * TikTok Ban Averted As Trump Gives Deal With Oracle, Walmart His 'Blessing'(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.







Zimbabwe leader tells UN that sanctions hurt development

Zimbabwe's leader on Thursday appealed at the United Nations for support to end Western sanctions, saying that they set back development goals.







Malaysia's Political Jockeying Is a Distraction

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Once a bastion of political stability in a troubled region, Malaysia faces the prospect of its third government in little more than six months. A war of attrition over the premiership is the last thing the country needs.Gross domestic product shrank 17.1% in the second quarter, the worst performance in East Asia, and deflation is taking root. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin came to power in March, just as the pandemic began rippling through the region. His support never looked very solid. That shaky backdrop has opened the door for the latest leadership challenge. On Wednesday, Anwar Ibrahim, a one-time establishment insider now heading up the opposition, shocked investors by asserting he has more than enough votes in parliament to command a majority and oust Muhyiddin. While Anwar’s announcement hasn’t been matched by public declarations of support, it was jarring enough to push stocks lower and nudge the currency to a two-week low. The premier says he isn't going anywhere and is focused on trying to contain Covid-19 and lift the economy out of a historic recession — effectively challenging Anwar to put up or shut up. There’s no denying Anwar has come close to the apex of power in Malaysia in the past, only to stumble, or get tripped, before the finish line. With an abundance of salon intrigue, the political class at times appears out to lunch on basic governing needs. Within Muhyiddin’s camp, backers have engaged in public spats about who gets to contest electoral districts and which supporters get plum public-sector jobs. Four stimulus packages have been passed mostly by decree; other critical things like raising the debt ceiling need legislation. Demonstrating a working majority is critical, but Muhyiddin's is so thin he appears wary of risking a public vote.It wasn't always this way. For most of its six decades of nationhood, the country was able to steer a middle ground in Southeast Asia. One coalition ruled for most of that time and returned at regular elections. By contrast, neighboring Indonesia has been prone to epic crackups that degenerate into communal violence. In Thailand, the military regularly installs and sacks cabinets, and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines was able to seize power and rule as an autocrat for years before getting overthrown. Now, power in Malaysia risks falling into a disturbing pattern: a few lawmakers switch sides and unseat governments outside of elections.That’s what Anwar's gambit would mean. Neither he nor Muhyiddin want the stalemate broken by the monarch — whose role is largely ceremonial — dissolving parliament and calling a fresh election. Each man worries that he would lose. Provincial balloting this weekend in Sabah is the next potential trip wire; the northeastern Borneo state is one of the few local administrations not allied to Muhyiddin's bloc. The return of the state government would be seen as a rebuff of the prime minister and, in theory, a plus for Anwar.The fractured nature of the opposition is also part of the story here. Before March, Anwar looked on course to assume the premiership later this year, such was the gentleman's agreement with then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. The two had history: Back in the 1990s, Anwar was also heir apparent to Mahathir, when both held office under a different political grouping, the Barisan Nasional, which had run the country since independence. But Anwar fell out with Mahathir and was jailed. The two men reconciled and united to defeat Barisan, which they claimed had succumbed to graft. Najib Razak, the last Barisan leader to occupy the premier’s job, was convicted and sentenced to prison for his role in the 1MDB saga. (Najib has appealed.) The terms of the Mahathir-Anwar peace treaty were that Mahathir, now in his 90s, would stand aside for Anwar after a few years. They could never fully reconcile, however. Their supporters split, enabling Muhyiddin to ascend. Anwar is on the outside wanting desperately back in; Mahathir says he'll wait and see how things pan out.This isn't just a storm within the ethnic Malay community, which has long formed the backbone of politics and policy. The region has much at stake in Malaysian stability. The nation is a major exporter of electronics and tied intimately to the global economic cycle. It sits astride the vital sea lanes of the Straits of Malacca and is one of the claimants on tracts of the South China Sea.Consistency and continuity count for a lot in such a diverse corner of the world. Unfortunately, these virtues tend to get noticed only once they are gone. Soon after Muhyiddin was installed in March, I wrote that Malaysia's politics had come to resemble the divisions over faith, ethnicity and urban-rural cleavage that characterized Brexit and Donald Trump. Malaysia can do better. Considering his reputation as a reformer and champion of civil society, so can Anwar.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously he was executive editor of Bloomberg News for global economics, and has led teams in Asia, Europe and North America.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.







Putin joins Trump as Nobel Peace Prize candidate: report

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has reportedly joined President Trump as a dark horse candidate for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. According to Newsweek, the state-owned Russian news agency Tass made the announcement and insisted the Russian government wasn’t responsible for nominating its own strongman. A collective of Russian public figures including writer Sergey Komkov were reportedly behind Putin’s nomination.







Coronavirus latest news: Students in Scotland told not to go to pubs, parties or restaurants this weekend

New mutation could be evolving to get around mask-wearing and hand-washing Hancock unable to throw light on rules over couples living apart having sex Just nine countries left that Britons can visit without restrictions Escape to the country for six more months? It might be too late Subscribe to The Telegraph Students in Scotland are being told not to go to pubs, parties or restaurants this weekend in a bid to suppress a spike in coronavirus outbreaks. With hundreds of new infections in student halls across the country, the Scottish Government and Universities Scotland said: "This weekend, the first of the new tighter Scottish government guidance, we will require students to avoid all socialising outside of their households and outside of their accommodation. "We will ask them not to go to bars or other hospitality venues." Extra staff will be brought into student accommodation to watch for any breaches of the guidance and to support students who are self-isolating. Elsewhere, a coronavirus testing site has "disappeared overnight" to make way for a Brexit lorry park, leaving residents confused about where to get tested. The Tipner drive-through centre in Portsmouth was due to become a lorry site on October 5, but was moved to Southampton Airport ahead of schedule and without warning. Portsmouth City Council's cabinet member for health, Matthew Winnington, said he had "no clue" the site would move early, adding the Health Secretary should "take responsibility" for the change. Follow the latest updates below.







U.N. aviation agency ICAO advises Pakistan to suspend issuance of new pilot licenses









US hits Iran court, judges with sanctions over wrestler

The Trump administration on Thursday hit an Iranian revolutionary court and several judges with sanctions in part for their role in the conviction and execution of a young wrestler. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo imposed the sanctions on two judges with Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Shiraz as well as three prisons where he said human rights abuses were rampant. Pompeo said Judge Seyyed Mahmoud Sadati was being hit for his involvement in the case of 27-year-old wrestler Navid Afkari who was executed earlier this month despite worldwide appeals for clemency, including from President Donald Trump.







UK plans 'Magnitsky'-style sanctions against officials in Belarus

Dominic Raab announces move against those responsible for rigged ballot and suppressing protestsThe UK is drawing up “Magnitsky”-style human rights sanctions against officials in Belarus responsible for administering the rigged re-election of president Alexander Lukashenko or directing the violent suppression of subsequent street protests.The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said on Thursday that he will introduce the sanctions in conjunction with the US and Canada, reiterating that Lukashenko’s election on 9 August could not be regarded as legitimate.Efforts by the European Union to impose sanctions have been held up by Cyprus’s refusal to endorse the move unless sanctions are imposed on Turkey in a separate dispute over drilling rights in the east Mediterranean. The delay has been a humiliation to the EU’s efforts to project a coherent foreign policy.Lukashenko was sworn for a sixth term in office on Wednesday in a ceremony without announcements or publicity – apparently in an effort to avoid it becoming a magnet for protesters. Opposition leaders and European politicians immediately denounced his inauguration as illegitimate.Raab told MPs: “We do not accept the results of this rigged election. Second, we condemn the thuggery deployed against the Belarussian people.” He said the violence being used by the state was brazen.He added it is “absolutely critical” that those responsible are held to account, explaining: “We are willing to join the EU in adopting targeted sanctions against those responsible for the violence, the repression and the vote-rigging, although the EU process has now been delayed in Brussels.“Given that delay, given [Lukashenko’s] fraudulent inauguration, I have directed the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] sanction team to prepare Magnitsky sanctions for those responsible for the serious human rights violations and we’re co-ordinating with the United States and Canada to prepare appropriate listings as a matter of urgency.”He also said he was releasing £1.5m cash over two years primarily to help local journalists and civil society in Belarus report on the street protests and its violent repression. The UK has already demanded an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe investigation into the ballot rigging that saw British embassy officials blocked from observing an election that Lukashenko claimed he had won with 80% of the vote.Raab did not say whether the sanctions will hit Lukashenko himself, but the draft EU list covered 20 other officials. Germany has argued lines need to be kept open to the ageing president, but the Lithuanian foreign minister, Linas Linkevičius has personally lobbied Raab in London to include Lukashenko, saying an asset freeze did not preclude holding talks.Lithuania has become the home for much of the Belarus opposition that has been driven out of their country.Raab said the relationship between Lukashenko and the Russian president, Vladimir, Putin is nuanced, but warned it was important not to see Belarus driven under Russia’s complete predatory control.Previous sanctions against Belarus security officials were lifted in 2016.Raab said he had told Germany and France about the UK’s opposition to Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia but, so far, Germany’s foreign office has opposed the suspension of its completion, arguing that many contacts have already been signed.







Trump blasted for suggesting he might not honor vote

Top Republicans and Democrats pushed back hard Thursday against President Donald Trump's suggestion he might not accept defeat in the November election, warning him the United States was not "North Korea."







Trump cuts aid for pro-democracy groups in Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran

Open Technology Fund, which helped activists evade state surveillance and sidestep web censorship, sees m grant pulledThe Trump administration has stopped vital technical assistance to pro-democracy groups in Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran, which had helped activists evade state surveillance and sidestep internet censorship.The Open Technology Fund (OTF) has had to stop all its operations in Belarus, and many of its activities supporting civil society in Hong Kong and Iran, because a congressionally-mandated grant of nearly m has been withheld by a new Trump appointee, Michael Pack.The OTF is a small non-profit organisation that develops technologies for evading cyber-surveillance and for circumventing internet and radio blackouts imposed by authoritarian regimes. It provides daily help to pro-democracy movements in installing and maintaining them, with the aim of staying at least one step ahead of the state.The chair of the OTF board, Karen Kornbluh, said the end of funding from the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which Pack has been running since June, would mean that activists living under repressive regimes were at increased risk.“They are more vulnerable,” Kornbluh told the Guardian. “It means from a US perspective, it’s really undermining this core tool that we have for protecting democratic values and protecting those who are seeking their freedoms overseas.”She added the freeze also meant that the populations in those countries will find it harder to listen to the Voice of America, the USAGM’s flagship broadcaster, and USAGM-funded stations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, because it would be more difficult to overcome state jamming methods.“We have these agencies and we’re kneecapping them,” said Kornbluh, a former US ambassador and now director of the digital innovation and democracy initiative at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.Pack had agreed over a month ago to appear before the House foreign affairs committee on Thursday, but cancelled with a few days notice and then ignored a committee subpoena to attend.Since taking over USAGM in June, Pack – an ally of the rightwing ideologue and former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon – purged all the top management and boards of the broadcasters under its control, froze spending, and elevated the profile of pro-administration comment in relation to news.Kornbluh and former USAGM officials testifying before the foreign affairs committee described a climate of chaos and creeping authoritarianism at the agency that was sapping the credibility of VOA, RFE/RL and other US broadcasters, with consequences for US national security.They also said Pack was endangering journalists by refusing to renew the visas for foreign journalists working for VOA, leading to their deportation, potentially to countries where they could be at risk.In some cases, the management has intervened with US immigration and citizenship services to prevent the journalists from securing other visas, and even bought unsolicited tickets home for VOA reporters.“They want to demonstrate that as many people as possible are returning back to their countries,” one of the affected VOA journalists said. “I feel like we serve his purpose of America First, foreigners out, media are bad. I would never expect that from a democracy.”Pack claimed to have an administrative meeting on Thursday which meant he could not attend the congressional hearing, but the committee chair, Eliot Engel, noted that the USAGM meeting appeared to have been called long after Pack first agreed to appear in Congress.Pack’s office has suggested that visas and funds were frozen over security concerns, but Kornbluh denied allegations that OTF staff used Zoom and were careless with computer drives. The Fund staff do not use Zoom and uses for the cloud rather than physical drives for storage, she said.Last month, OTF took USAGM to court, resulting in the reinstatement of Kornbluh and its president Laura Cunningham, who Pack had sought to purge, but the congressionally-approved funds have still not been unblocked.Witnesses at Thursday’s hearing said Pack’s motives for hollowing out the agency were unclear. The USAGM did not respond to a request for comment.In an interview with the rightwing Federalist blog last month, Pack claimed that a dispute over vetting procedures meant that the VOA could be infiltrated by foreign intelligence agencies, suggesting that being a journalist was “a great cover for a spy”.At Thursday’s committee hearing, Pack was lambasted for echoing the language authoritarian regimes use to justify imprisoning journalists.“To assert that spies from foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated the establishment,” Ryan Crocker, a former USAGM board member. “Not only does it discredit our reputation for honesty, it puts everyone out there in the field at danger.”Grant Turner, the former chief financial officer and acting USAGM CEO said that Pack’s funding freeze had created chaos. At one point, he said there was no money in the agency headquarters to buy toilet roll.“Nothing in my 17 years [of government experience] comes even close to the gross mismanagement, the abuse of authority, the violations of law, that have occurred since Michael Pack assumed the role of CEO at USAGM,” Turner told the committee.







Trump promotes health care 'vision' but gaps remain

More than three-and-a-half years into his presidency and 40 days from an election, President Donald Trump on Thursday launched what aides termed a “vision” for health care heavy on unfulfilled aspirations. “This is affirmed, signed, and done, so we can put that to rest,” Trump said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissively said Trump's “bogus executive order on pre-existing conditions isn’t worth the paper it’s signed on.”







Seeking deeper emissions cuts, U.N. and Britain plan December climate summit









Democrats to redraft virus relief in bid to jump-start talks

House Democrats are going back to the drawing board on a huge COVID-19 relief bill, paring back the measure in an attempt to jump-start negotiations with the Trump administration. Bridging the overall topline gulf would be difficult enough, but fleshing out hundreds of legislative details at the height of the presidential campaign and a heated battle over filling Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the High Court could be impossible. The aide requested anonymity to characterize the closed-door talks.







Biden's Scranton vs. Park Ave. appeal targets working class

Joe Biden stood on the floor of a Wisconsin aluminum plant this week, shed the trappings of his decades in national politics and then took aim at the billionaire New Yorker he wants to evict from the Oval Office. “I’ve dealt with guys like Donald Trump my whole life, who would look down on us because we didn’t have a lot of money or your parents didn’t go to college,” Biden said, recalling his boyhood roots. Biden has long cultivated his persona as “Middle-Class Joe” with “hardscrabble” roots, but as he turns to the closing stretch of his third presidential bid, the Scranton, Pennsylvania, native is personalizing his pitch as he tries to undercut one of the president's core strengths.







Microsoft supports commission calling for re-establishment of US cyber czar









Neil Mendoza interview: 'This Government cares more about culture than any that I can remember'

Neil Mendoza, the Government’s Commissioner for Cultural Recovery and Renewal, is talking about the dissonance between those who work in the arts and the current Government. “There is no overlap between the two. No one in the cultural sector votes Tory and no one voted for Brexit so there is no natural affinity in terms of votes. And yet, this Government cares more about culture than any that I can remember. “The Prime Minister is keen on culture and so is Munira Mirza, head of policy at Number 10, and it goes right across the board.” This feels a little hard to accept on a day when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak announced a new Job Support Scheme to replace the furlough scheme, which requires companies who choose to employ people for a third of their normal working hours to also pay for a third of the hours the employee has lost. But Mendoza is remaining upbeat. He says that he “welcomes the Chancellor’s intervention. And we will see how these measures affect the sector. It will take a few weeks to understand the impact of what all of this means. It may be like some of the European measures such as we have seen in Germany. “The creative industries have a natural resourcefulness because they want to put something on, whether it’s a museum, a garden, a heritage site or theatre. They will do something, no question.” I first met Mendoza a week ago, in his book-lined office in Mayfair (the former premises of John Murray Publishing, which once looked after Byron and Jane Austen), when things were looking a little rosier. We were there, in the main, to discuss the apportionment of the healthy £1.5 billion package the cultural sector was awarded in July, just as rumours swirled that the current administration cared not a fig for an industry, which, until the coronavirus struck, was one of the most dynamic in the UK. Mendoza’s role, created in the spring by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is, in crude terms, to oversee who gets the dosh. He has been working with what are known as “arm’s length bodies” – Arts Council England, the British Film Institute, Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund – which deal with the thousands of applications (for loans or grants) which have come from all over the UK. Mendoza tells me that the analysis of reports from each of these will be completed by the end of September, with rolled-out announcements of who is getting what to follow shortly afterwards. He expects the money to start reaching successful applicants in October. Simple? Of course not, says Mendoza. They have had to look at many different operating models – from fringe theatres to railway museums, and despite his insistence on this Government’s love of all things cultural, it was not a case of the Treasury merely opening its purse. “There is always going to be resistance because they say you’ve got to argue your case, along with health, or education, or defence. And, of course, there will be further resistance because it is taxpayers’ money. So we have to offer reassurance to the Treasury that money is being spent sensibly, and that we’re not frittering away money on organisations that won’t survive.” Mendoza describes himself as a natural optimist, but he is not so Pollyannaish to think it’s going to be all beer and skittles for the sector. When I catch up with him following the Prime Minister’s warnings of a further six months of Covid-19 restrictions on Tuesday, he sounds a note of caution. Pilots around the country to test safety at various venues will continue but he worries about the psychological effect of this week’s prognosis. He says: “My task is to redouble the seriousness of what we are doing. The lack of activity in central city locations because of people now working from home again will create an additional challenge. We need to work to create confidence for people to leave their homes and enjoy culture and entertainment in the towns and cities and that will be all the harder because some people might not want to do that.” Then the optimist speaks: “But there are lots of people who do have confidence and they will see these places are really well prepared.” Mendoza is 59 and grew up in suburban north London. He got into culture through music (an early memory is seeing T. Rex at Camden’s Roundhouse) and later, at school (Haberdashers’ Aske’s) and university (Oriel College, Oxford, where he is now provost) he found a passion for acting, although he is keen to point out he is not a frustrated thesp. He is certainly not theatrical in person, though there is a sense of playfulness. When I ask him what he thinks of Oliver Dowden (the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport), he seems momentarily flustered. “I can’t go into that!”, before adding. “I think he is a very nice man.” Mendoza then goes on to describe Dowden as “inspirational” and “clever”, though it is clear, later, that he has no truck with the term “crown jewels” that Dowden has used, several times, when referring to our best-loved cultural institutions. “I hate that phrase,” he says. “It doesn’t mean anything because if you are a small museum in a village, you are that village’s crown jewels and if that goes, you have taken away what is meaningful.” One of the big tussles over the bail-out money is between the big, previously successful institutions and those that operate at grassroots level (indeed, £2.25 million has already been apportioned to grassroots music venues across the country). For Mendoza, the recovery fund is about recognition of how important culture is to society. “It is not just about rescuing culture for its own sake. It’s about rescuing culture because it’s woven into the fabric of towns and cities.” Of course a major crisis for the sector has been the plight of individuals, the freelancers who are the lifeblood of arts and culture. “All the people in the industry… those who do the lighting, the sound effects people, set designers. It’s so tough for them, but if we can save organisations, that will have an effect on them, then we can move into activity which will help everybody else.” He does worry he says for the performing in arts, in particular: “I worry because you experience the live arts best when you are in a mosh pit surrounded by lots of other people, and I lament that experience has gone and I feel sorry for young people who haven’t had that.” I ask Mendoza about a shakedown in the arts when all of this is over. Does he think we will be forced to adopt the American model of philanthropy? “I think about museums like the Tate whose own income derives from philanthropy or ticket sales or commercial activities, so in a way we are able to look after ourselves and that is not a terrible thing.” He goes on to talk about a smaller organisation, the Soho Theatre, in London, of which he was vice-chairman, as an example of a company that had its public subsidy slashed and managed to survive through a mixture of commercial activity; with a bar and restaurant, tickets at different prices and, of course, a certain one-woman show called Fleabag. “The more you look after yourself the better,” he says. Despite the wodge of cash that is on its way, that sounds, on reflection, like a sepulchral statement of things to come. “It is such a responsible task to get this right,” says Mendoza. “We are being tasked to save our sector and not everything will be saved because there is not enough money to go round.” He brightens: “But hopefully not too many.”







Putin’s Troll Farm Busted Running Sprawling Network of Facebook Pages

Facebook booted three troll networks linked to Russian intelligence and the St. Petersburg-based troll farm involved in meddling in the 2016 election.Nathan Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security, told reporters in a press conference that the three networks mainly focused on audiences and issues outside of the U.S. presidential election but that the company had suspended them now out of an abundance of caution because they “could pivot to support a hack-and-leak operation” in the future.While Facebook hasn’t seen any evidence that Russia’s intelligence services planned to use the suspended networks to amplify hacked content in a hack-and-leak operation, the potential remained an “important risk we should all be watching for in the weeks to come,” according to Gleicher.Leaked Documents Show Russian Trolls Tried to Infiltrate Left-Wing MediaThe three networks used Facebook primarily as a means to amplify content from off-platform websites, and to find and recruit authentic and unwitting people to help hype their propaganda, many of them journalists.The first network, linked by Facebook to Russian military intelligence, consisted of a cluster of “214 Facebook accounts, 35 Pages, 18 Groups and 34 Instagram accounts,” according to the company, and focused on the “Syrian civil war, Turkish domestic politics, geopolitical issues in the Asia-Pacific region, NATO, the war in Ukraine, and politics in the Baltics, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and the US.”Another smaller network involved 5 Facebook accounts, a page, a group, and three Instagram accounts centered around a fictitious Turkey-based think tank dubbed “United World International.” Facebook found the group after a tip from the FBI and linked the group to previous activity associated with the Internet Research Agency (IRA). Gleicher told reporters that the company chose to attribute the network to previous IRA activity because it’s “not clear whether today if the IRA is still active or if it is in what form.”The final network centered around the Strategic Culture Foundation, a Moscow-based think tank that has long been suspected to be a front for Russian intelligence, and similar outlets. In a State Department report released in August, the department’s Global Engagement Center described the Strategic Culture Foundation as “an online journal registered in Russia that is directed by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and closely affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”She Was Tricked by Russian Trolls—and It Derailed Her LifeFacebook appeared to agree with that assessment and described the Facebook assets used by the Strategic Culture Foundation to be linked to Russian nationals, including “those associated with Russian intelligence services.”Thursday’s move follows a similar announcement from Facebook in August when it suspended another Russian-linked disinformation effort after a tip from the FBI. Law enforcement told the social media company that PeaceData, a news site which purported to be a Romania-based publication focused on anti-corruption and human rights, was a Russian intelligence front. A subsequent Facebook investigation found that the company was linked to the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based troll farm responsible for much of Russia’s 2016 election meddling.Much like the networks suspended on Thursday, PeaceData relied on unwitting Western journalists in order to amplify their content. Trolls posing as PeaceData editors pitched left-leaning freelancers and encouraged them to re-publish content written for the site at other, more established outlets in an apparent bid to increase their name recognition and legitimacy.According to a Washington Post report, the CIA has concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “probably directing” an influence campaign to damage Vice President Joe Biden’s chances in the 2020 election. Earlier this month, the Treasury Department sanctioned Ukrainain member of parliament Andrii Derkach, who has been providing dirt on Biden’s son Hunter to a Republican-led Senate investigation, for “attempting to influence the U.S. electoral process.”President Donald Trump and his aides, however, have tried to downplay the aggressive role that the intelligence community and other agencies say Russia is trying to play in the 2020 election.Shortly after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that Moscow was engaged in “very active efforts” to influence the election, Trump berated Wray in a tweet claiming, without evidence, that Beijing was far more involved in meddling. “But Chris, you don’t see any activity from China, even though it is a FAR greater threat than Russia, Russia, Russia,” he wrote.It’s a claim that top Trump aides, including National Security Adviser Robert C O’Brien, Attorney General Bill Barr, and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe have echoed but declined to substantiate.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.







Trump Campaign Uses Russian Footage in Ad—Again

An advertisement for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign emphasizes that he is the only candidate whose economic plan will be “made in the USA”—but part of the ad itself was made in Russia.Eight seconds into Trump’s latest ad boosting his work on the economy, wordily titled “We built the greatest economy in world history and now we're doing it again!”, the spot cuts from standard images of factory workers in hard hats and children playing in fields to a conveyor belt with cardboard boxes digitally superimposed with the label “MADE IN USA.”That animation, according to a review of Shutterstock, was actually made—along with “MADE IN IRAN” and “MADE IN UAE” versions—by Russia-based photographer and illustrator Novikov Aleksey.The Trump campaign, which did not respond to a request for comment about the source of the footage, has previously run into trouble with the use of B-roll in its digital and on-air advertisements. In the same advertisement as the Russia-sourced animation, Trump uses footage of an Illinois steel plant that laid off hundreds of workers in the spring, according to a report in Vice News.Earlier this month, an online advertisement that ran over the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and asked Americans to “support our troops” included stock footage and images of Russian fighter jets and military weapons. In August, the campaign used altered images of Democratic opponent Joe Biden to show him “isolated” in the “basement” of his home in DelawareRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.







AP Explains: Powerful grand juries stay shrouded in secrecy

The announcement that no police officers would be charged in the death of Breonna Taylor threw a spotlight on the role of grand juries, which are shrouded in secrecy yet wield enormous power in courthouses across the U.S. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Wednesday that two officers who shot at 26-year-old Taylor after barging into her apartment on a warrant were justified because Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, had fired one shot at them. The grand jury did charge another officer, Brett Hankison, with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing shots that went into another home with people inside.







Chopper's Politics: Boris Johnson 'has got his mojo back and is not quitting after Brexit', says ex-minister

Boris Johnson has got "his mojo back" and will not stand down as Prime Minister after Brexit, a minster who quit his Government this month says. In an interview with today's Chopper's Politics podcast, which you can listen to on the audio player below, Simon Clarke, who stood down as Communities minister on Sept 8, said: "I think Bojo has got his mojo back actually.







Kremlin critic Navalny's apartment seized, his aide says









Trump's UN speech was a bizarre feat of gaslighting and fantasy

It only made sense if you see the world as Trump does – a world where he can do no wrong, and completely divorced from facts Seventy-five years after its founding, the United Nations is facing an unprecedented challenge in helping countries respond to a devastating pandemic. And Donald Trump – the leader of the world’s most powerful country, which helped establish the UN – is sabotaging efforts to collectively tackle the pandemic and other threats that the UN was created to solve.This year, the pandemic forced the UN to conduct diplomacy virtually. World leaders had to pre-record their speeches for the 75th general assembly, highlighting in stark fashion the grave challenges that all countries face today from Covid-19, as well as the tall task the UN has in marshaling an effective global coordination effort.Trump’s pre-recorded speech was fitting for a president who has decimated US credibility like few of his predecessors: speaking into the void, Trump spun a fantastical tale of a world in which the United States is leading the charge against all manner of evil, from the pandemic to China to Iran. Like much of Trump’s rants on Twitter or on stage, his speech to the UN only made sense if you see the world as Trump does – a world where he can do no wrong, and completely divorced from the facts.The facts, unfortunately, show a president who has exacerbated multiple crises roiling his own country, and who has made the world a more dangerous place.Trump has purposely downplayed the pandemic and its deadliness – despite knowing better – and has refused to appropriately prepare and respond to the crisis. As a result, more than 200,000 Americans so far have died – more than 20% of the world’s recorded deaths from Covid-19 come from America, which has roughly 4% of the world’s population. And while the pandemic continues to kill Americans and people around the world, Trump’s administration has refused to participate in global efforts to fight the pandemic, whether in the World Health Organization or through collaborative efforts with other countries to develop and distribute a vaccine.When it comes to China, Trump has only weakened America’s ability to address the real challenges that China poses. Instead of working with allies to pressure China over its trade practices, human rights abuses, or military aggression, Trump has alienated America’s allies. He launched a trade war that cost American jobs. He has withdrawn American leadership – from the UN, from the WHO, and other efforts to build and enforce norms that protect America – allowing China’s global influence to grow. And Trump has repeatedly sacrificed America’s interests to China in favor of helping himself, including by asking China’s president, Xi Jinping, to interfere in US politics to advantage Trump politically.Trump, amazingly, attempted to claim that he has a good record on the environment, while the reality is that his administration has intentionally reversed gains America has made in recent years in combating climate change. From announcing that America would leave the Paris climate agreement to rolling back myriad regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions, Trump has set the world back in its efforts to solve the planet’s most existential crisis.Trump’s Iran policy has been counterproductive and dangerous. To kick off the UN general assembly week, Trump’s top cabinet officials announced new sanctions on Iran, and in the process reminded everyone just how isolated the United States is when it comes to Iran. America’s own allies – the UK, France, and Germany – responded to the latest Trump sanctions by noting that America was no longer a member of the nuclear deal, and therefore could not invoke the deal’s terms to impose “snapback” sanctions. Since withdrawing the United States from the deal that stopped Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Iran has accelerated its program in ways that the nuclear deal had halted.In today’s world, countries must partner to solve shared challenges. The United Nations and other multilateral organizations are where America can rally the world to take concrete action, whether it’s to reduce carbon emissions or to pressure China over its human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. The American people recognize this reality – a recent poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs reported that 62% of Americans believe that “the coronavirus outbreak has made it clear that it is more important for the United States to coordinate and collaborate with other countries to solve global issues.”Instead of using these institutions to America’s advantage, Trump has attempted to tear them down, from announcing the withdrawal of the US from the WHO in the middle of a pandemic to removing the US from the Global Migration Compact amid the worst displaced persons crisis ever, to name just a couple of examples.People around the world don’t trust Trump or Trump’s America. A recent Pew Research Center poll made clear that, in many countries considered America’s closest friends, “the share of the public with a favorable view of the US is as low as it has been at any point since the Center began polling on this topic nearly two decades ago”, and Trump has a lower approval rating than both the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping. When the world doesn’t respect or trust America, others won’t work with America in pursuing its goals.The pandemic could not be a more striking illustration of how desperately the world needs a robust UN. And the consequences of the Trump administration’s rejection of multilateralism and undermining of America’s credibility abroad is a powerful reminder that principled American leadership in the UN and international bodies is essential to solving our greatest challenges.







‘You are not in North Korea’: Pelosi blasts Trump over refusal to promise peaceful transfer of power

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminded President Trump on Thursday that he’s “not in North Korea” after he refused to promise that there’ll be a peaceful transition of power in the event he loses the election in November. In a press conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi called Trump’s dithering on the fundamental issue “very sad" and noted that he often offers praise for the authoritarian leaders of North Korea, Russia and Turkey. “But I remind him: You are not in North Korea, you are not in Turkey, you are not in Russia, Mr. President, and, by the way, you are not in Saudi Arabia," she said.







At UN, China, Russia and US clash over pandemic responses

The United States butted heads with China and Russia at the United Nations on Thursday over responsibility for the pandemic that has interrupted the world, trading allegations about who mishandled and politicized the virus in one of the few real-time exchanges among top officials at this year’s COVID-distanced U.N. General Assembly meeting. The remarks at the U.N. Security Council’s ministerial meeting on the assembly’s sidelines came just after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the lack of international cooperation in tackling the still “out-of-control” coronavirus. The sharp exchanges, at the end of a virtual meeting on “Post COVID-19 Global Governance,” reflected the deep divisions among the three veto-wielding council members that have escalated since the virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in January.







If world handles climate like COVID-19, U.N. chief says: 'I fear the worst'









Hermès to Sell Special United Nations Tie









Yemen's president urges Houthis to allow humanitarian aid

Yemen’s embattled and exiled president on Thursday urged his government’s rival, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, to stop impeding the flow of urgently needed humanitarian aid following a warning from the U.N. humanitarian chief last week that “the specter of famine” has returned to the conflict-torn country. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s plea came in a prerecorded speech to the U.N. General Assembly’s ministerial meeting being held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It aired more than a week after Human Rights Watch warned that all sides in Yemen’s conflict were interfering with the arrival of food, health care supplies, water and sanitation support.







Crowd jeers as Trump pays respects at court to Ginsburg

President Donald Trump was booed Thursday as he paid respects to late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The president and first lady Melania Trump — both wearing masks — stood silently at the top of the steps of the court and looked down at Ginsburg’s flag-draped coffin, which was surrounded by white flowers. Ginsburg’s death has sparked a controversy over the political balance of the court just weeks before the November presidential election.







UN official: Bosnia authorities expose migrants to suffering

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — With harsh weather fast approaching, the number of migrants and refugees who are sleeping rough in Bosnia keeps rising because of the persistent refusal by authorities at different levels of government in the country to coordinate their work and embrace “rational” solutions, a U.N. migration official said Thursday. Peter Van der Auweraert, the Western Balkans coordinator and Bosnia representative of the International Organization for Migration, told The Associated Press that instead of helping the U.N. agency to expand accommodation for migrants, some local authorities in the country are now even restricting access to housing that is already available. Of around 8,500 migrants stuck in Bosnia, 2,500 are forced to sleep outside “in squats, forests, streets (and) abandoned buildings,” mostly in the northwestern Krajina region, which shares a highly porous 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) border with European Union member Croatia.







UAE, Israeli cyber chiefs discuss joining forces to combat common threats

The establishment of formal Israel-UAE ties over the last month - spurred in part by common worries about Iran - unleashed a flurry of bilateral deals, including on cyber technologies, Israeli exports of which were valued at .5 billion in 2019. "We are threatened by the same threats ... because of the nature of the region, because of the nature of our new, 'outed' relations and because of who we are - strong economically and technologically," Igal Unna, head of Israel's National Cyber Directorate, told UAE counterpart Mohamed al-Kuwaiti in an online conference.







Ministers 'seek alternatives' for UK sat-nav

The government says it is after all ideas for a sovereign satellite-navigation system post-Brexit.







At UN, Africa urges fiscal help against virus 'apocalypse'

African nations came out swinging on the third day of the United Nations annual gathering of world leaders Thursday, calling for dramatic fiscal measures to help economies survive the coronavirus pandemic — which one leader called the “fifth horseman of the apocalypse.” Africa's 54 countries estimate they need 0 billion in support annually for the next three years, pointing out that it’s a fraction of the trillions of dollars some richer countries are using to revive their economies. As some world powers go their own way during the crisis — what Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa called “the blind pursuit of narrow interests” — the African nations that make up more than a quarter of U.N. members are leaning hard into multilateralism.







Trump niece files suit saying family cheated her of millions

Donald Trump’s niece followed up her best-selling, tell-all book with a lawsuit Thursday alleging that the president and two of his siblings cheated her out of millions of dollars over several decades while squeezing her out of the family business. Mary L. Trump sought unspecified damages in the lawsuit, filed in a state court in New York City. The lawsuit alleged the president, his brother Robert, and a sister, the former federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, portrayed themselves as Mary Trump's protectors while secretly taking her share of minority interests in the family's extensive real estate holdings.







Carney backs call for climate risk to be baked into company financial accounts









TVO Original Series ‘Striking Balance’ (Season 2) Invites Viewers to Explore Sustainable Communities and Economies in Canada’s Biosphere Reserves starting October 4









US envoy wants dialogue with Iran on Afghanistan

The US negotiator on Afghanistan said Thursday he would welcome talks with Iran on ending the Afghan conflict, accusing Tehran of seeking to bog down its arch-enemy in its longest war.







