Freight trains crossed the Crimean Bridge for the first time on Tuesday, marking the official launch of regular freight rail service along the 19-km link connecting the peninsula with mainland Russia.
Starting from the opposite shores of the Kerch Strait, the two trains met near the bridge’s arch, a video posted on Twitter shows. One was carrying products from Crimea, such as soda ash and limestone, while the train departing from mainland Russia brought gasoline, fertilizers, and grains, among other goods, to the region.
The operator of passenger and freight services, Crimea Railway, hopes the launch will allow the volume of goods carried along the route to be increased to 3 million tons this year.
With shipment costs expected to drop significantly, local products will become more competitive, the operator said, adding that freight traffic will boost the economic development of the region.
The construction of the bridge, the longest in Europe, started in February 2016, less than two years after Crimea voted to reunite with Russia in a referendum. At the end of 2019, the link was opened for passenger trains, around a year and a half after automobile traffic was launched.
The city of Boston has voted to take down a 19th century statue honoring Abraham Lincoln and the freeing of the slaves, arguing that residents view its depiction of a kneeling black man as demeaning.
In a vote on Tuesday, Boston’s Art Commission resolved to remove the monument, with Mayor Martin Walsh stating the decision was part of a broader push to “make Boston a more equitable and just city.” The move will cost the city at least $15,000, according to Boston public art director Karin Goodfellow.
“After engaging in a public process, it’s clear that residents and visitors to Boston have been uncomfortable with this statue, and its reductive representation of the Black man’s role in the abolitionist movement,” Walsh said, adding “I fully support the Boston Art Commission’s decision for removal.”
The statue is a copy of a similar monument in the nation’s capital, created by sculptor Thomas Ball in 1876 and meant to depict Archer Alexander, a black man who assisted the Union Army during the Civil War. The kneeling scene is derived from an account put forward by David Dixon Porter – a Civil War-era Navy admiral and author – who wrote that newly freed slaves, upon seeing Lincoln touring the streets of Richmond, Virginia after the defeat of Confederate troops there, dropped to their knees in praise.
Among a number of other monuments, activists have vowed to remove the original version of the emancipation statue in Washington, DC, saying it downplays the role of African Americans in the fight against slavery, handing all credit to Lincoln. The sculpture was initially funded by freed slaves, who raised thousands of dollars to see it built, but that, too, has courted controversy, as they were given no say in its design.
A number of netizens weighed in on the decision, some slamming the move as “wrong” and “delusional,” while others argued the artwork is “inspirational” and voiced disappointment that it would be removed.
🤦♂️
As a minority Latino
I loved seeing this statue in Boston. I respected it. It gave me hope for my raza, if black ppl had this freedom, so could I. It was inspirational. & now, it’s being removed because Antifa (White people) & rioters now control narrative. #LawAndOrder
Taking down the Abraham Lincoln statue in Boston is wrong. Stop giving in to any group that has a beef.. they’re trying to erase history. Good or bad it’s still history.. these groups are misguided and somewhat ignorant
While it’s unclear what will happen to the monument, the city said it did not intend to remove the artwork from its collection altogether, suggesting it could be loaned to a museum or placed into storage. Local artist Tory Bullock has urged the former option, stating the statue’s “great craftsmanship” could still be admired in a museum, and that the move would “finally, respectfully put this image away while never forgetting its history.”
US President Donald Trump’s plan to draw down the US contingent in Germany has been set in motion, with the Pentagon saying that 9,500 troops out of 34,500 stationed there will be removed pending consultations with allies.
“The Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff briefed the President yesterday on plans to redeploy 9,500 troops from Germany,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement on Tuesday, noting that the proposal had already been approved.
The plan to scale back the US military presence in Germany was made public by Trump earlier this month. He did not reveal the timeline for the withdrawal, and it was not immediately clear where they would be heading. The US contingent in Germany is expected to be slashed by 9,500 troops, meaning that Washington will still have a sizable 25,000-strong presence there.
Trump said that the pullout was in response to Berlin falling short of meeting a 2 percent GDP threshold in NATO defense spending, which was agreed back under the Obama administration. Although only eight countries so far have met the target, Trump directed his anger at Berlin, calling it “delinquent” in its payments to NATO and arguing that the country owes “billions” to the US-led military alliance.
While Trump’s critics used the looming withdrawal to pounce on the Republican president, accusing him of pandering to Russia, Trump has pointed out that while “some” of the released forces “will be coming home,” the rest will be redeployed to “other places.”
Although Hoffman did not mention where the troops would be “redeployed,” saying only that the plan “will also enhance Russian deterrence, strengthen NATO” and “reassure Allies,” the most likely destination is believed to be Poland, which has already expressed interest in hosting the US troops.
During a recent visit to Washington, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Warsaw asked the US to not remove the troops from Europe at all, instead relocating them to Poland to fend off “Russian aggression.” Trump agreed that Poland indeed “would be one” of the places in Europe where the US troops would be heading, but that some would “come home.”
There have been few details about the timeline and the scenario of the removal, with the Pentagon promising to provide “timely updates to potentially affected personnel, their families and communities as planning progresses.”
With uncertainty reigning over the future of the German contingent, there has been growing opposition to the plan in Congress, not just from the Democrats but from Trump’s own party. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that he expects an amendment to be introduced in the committee to stall the drawdown.
In a separate move, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) prepared an amendment that, if passed, would see the funds earmarked for the redeployment to be frozen until the secretary of defense “verifies” to Congress that the pullout would not hurt NATO, US military operations or the personnel.
Hoffman said that the Pentagon will be “briefing this plan to the congressional defense committees in the coming weeks,” before reaching out to NATO allies.
In his latest salvo against Fox News, US President Donald Trump invoked the memory of the network’s late CEO, Roger Ailes, to say the outlet had declined, drawing astute critics armed with Google to remind him the man had died.
Trump took to his favorite social media venue on Tuesday to decry a Fox panel discussion featuring disgraced CNN contributor Donna Brazile, who was caught passing debate questions to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 race, as was revealed in a WikiLeaks publication the same year.
“She gets fired by CNN for giving Crooked Hillary the debate questions, and gets hired by Fox News. Where are you Roger Ailes?” the president said, citing another tweet critical of Brazile.
She gets fired by @CNN for giving Crooked Hillary the debate questions, and gets hired by @FoxNews. Where are you Roger Ailes? https://t.co/XVwzt3Me5d
The post prompted a mad scramble among Trump’s critics to jump on the case, rushing to dig up the exact date of the CEO’s demise to throw it back in the president’s face – apparently taking his rhetorical musing on Ailes as a genuine question.
“Roger Ailes died three years ago,”noted one keen observer.
Trump soon shot back at the barrage of hard-hitting fact-checks, stating what may have been obvious to everybody else, that he is well aware his “friend” Ailes had passed, adding “just look at what happened to Fox News.”
I know better than anyone that my friend Roger Ailes died 3 years ago, just look at what happened to @FoxNews. We all miss Roger!!!
The clarification did little to appease the president’s detractors, however, many insisting the original Ailes tweet could only be taken as proof of cognitive decline.
BULLSHIT. You asked “where is Roger Ailes?” You had no idea he was dead or you wouldn’t have asked. You’re dementia is getting worse. #DementiaDon
What are you even saying? How could you possibly “know better than anyone that my friend Roger Ailes died 3 years ago”? You complain Biden has dementia, you rarely make any sense. #ResignNow
The US Secretary of Defense has said that while the Pentagon takes all threats against US troops “very seriously,” there is so far no proof for the ever-shifting story that Russia paid bounties for the deaths of US soldiers.
In a statement on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the top military brass treats the security of the US military personnel, including in Afghanistan, as a high priority.
“I want to assure all of our service members that the Department takes very seriously any and all potential threats against US military personnel,” he said.
Esper noted that while he and others in the US military command seek to ensure that “the best intelligence” as well as weapons, gear and equipment are available to the troops on the ground, there is currently no “no corroborating evidence...to validate the recent allegations regarding malign activity by Russian personnel against US forces in Afghanistan.”
I want to assure all of our service members that we take seriously any and all potential threats against U.S. military personnel. pic.twitter.com/Tcg3xzkZQ8
The ‘bombshell’ bounty claim – initially reported by the New York Times last Friday and later picked up by the bulk of the mainstream media without so much as a hint of skepticism – alleged a sinister pact between Russia and Taliban-linked elements, possibly criminals. Largely based on the interviews with anonymous officials, the story initially alleged that US President Donald Trump had been briefed on the plot sometime in late March and did nothing in retaliation. Although the story was promptly dismissed by Moscow as nonsense, aimed at stalling the US military drawdown in Afghanistan, the Resistance took it at face value, spinning it as yet more ‘proof’ of Trump’s cozy ties with the Kremlin – this time, at the expense of US service members.
However, with the White House, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) vehemently denying the briefing ever happened, the narrative has shifted. The latest version of the story now claims that the intelligence was included in one of Trump’s written presidential daily briefs in February. Moreover, after the Taliban itself refuted the reports, saying that it did not need “encouragement” from any third party to carry out its raids, the NYT cited an official saying that the suspected recipients of the money are now believed to be “criminals closely associated with the Taliban.”
Ukraine's former deputy infrastructure minister, Aleksandra Klitina, has bounced back from her scandalous firing last year, saying she is going to return to politics to fight corrupt men, but her looks overshadowed her message.
The 37-year-old former official announced the creation of her own party, called ‘Ukraine against corruption’ in a video posted on YouTube.
In the clip, which was filmed outdoors, Klitina appeared sporting what looks like a bikini or a rather revealing dress and delivered a strong-worded address, bashing the men now ruling Ukraine.
“I decided to fight for truth myself because those pants-wearing idiots are hopeless,” she proclaimed, promising that her party will “finally deal with those male political prostitutes.”
They think that if they have something in their pants, it's enough for them to be successful and be eligible to abuse women. But women are a hundred times smarter and a hundred times more honest than you.
But online commenters were more interested in her looks than political message, confessing that they couldn't understand a word she was saying due to being fully consumed by the image on screen.
The woman also addressed her firing from the post of deputy infrastructure minister in November last year, insisting that her boss Vladislav Krikliy moved against her only because she was preventing thievery in the ministry.
Her sacking was preceded by two online leaks, which made headlines in the Ukrainian media. First, the MPs for the ruling party of President Volodymyr Zelensky were taped saying that Klitina got to her high position through the bedroom. Then she became the victim of a prankster who she told that her boss was corrupt and that she would make a much better infrastructure minister than him.
The new party apparently doesn't have too many members at the moment. At least, there was nobody to film and edit her address as the clip starts with the woman switching on the camera on her phone and ends with it being switched off.
Wide-spread corruption has been a major stumbling block in Ukraine's development in recent decades. Every president, including Zelensky, vowed to eradicate it, but so far haven't achieved any significant results.
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Harvard University will no longer sanction students who take part in single-gender organizations, concluding the penalties would not survive an ongoing legal challenge from fraternities and sororities.
The Ivy League school said it would no longer enforce the ban on same-sex clubs on Monday, with Harvard president Lawrence Bacow noting the university “will not be able to carry forward with the existing policy under the prevailing interpretation of federal law.” The move came just hours after a group of student organizations asked a federal judge to halt the controversial policy with an injunction, following a pair of lawsuits brought last year.
One of the plaintiffs, the international Sigma Chi Fraternity, an all-male organization, hailed the move in a tweet on Tuesday.
On Monday, June 29, Harvard University dropped its discriminatory sanctions against students who choose to join single-sex organizations after facing 18 months of litigation and pressure from Sigma Chi and other interfraternal parties. https://t.co/3OyhhO9IcXpic.twitter.com/6yWAL3Q3pz
Harvard initially imposed penalties on students who joined “unrecognized single-sex social organizations” in 2016, barring them from holding leadership positions in other student groups and athletic teams, while also denying them college administered fellowships. The policy came on the heels of an internal report finding links to sexual assault and “deeply misogynistic attitudes” among all-male clubs, resolving to do away with them entirely.
Though the school also maintains that all single-gender groups are discriminatory, the plaintiffs on the suit have countered that the ban itself involved gender-based rules, arguing the policy “explicitly turns on the sex of both the student and those with whom the student associates.”
In December 2017, Harvard modified the rule to allow female students to remain in single-sex groups for a “grace period” of five years, but nonetheless reaffirmed the ban on all-male organizations. Though the school urged the female groups to move toward more inclusion, the policy change created a clear gender-based distinction.
Following the decision, Harvard suggested that its axing of the penalties should halt the student lawsuit, arguing that it was not entitled to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees, however lawyers for the frats and sororities told Reuters on Tuesday that the suit would continue regardless, seeking a ruling on the now-defunct rules.
The New York Times is doubling down on claims that Russia offered bounties for the killing of US troops in Afghanistan, but now says local criminals and not the Taliban were the recipients, again offering no actual evidence.
The new article, published Tuesday, says that “electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account” was intercepted by US spies and “bolsters suspicions” that Russia offered bounties to militants – as claimed by the Times last week.
Breaking News: The U.S. intercepted financial transfer data that bolstered suspicions about Russian bounties on American troops in Afghanistan, officials say https://t.co/TsllSxuSo2
Once again, the Times quotes anonymous sources – “three officials familiar with the intelligence” – so the claim is impossible to verify. No evidence of the alleged electronic transfer is provided, only a third-hand hearsay that “analysts concluded from other intelligence that the transfers were most likely part of a bounty program.”
The article eventually gets around to quoting several local officials from Afghanistan, who say that several people who transfer money through an Islamic banking system are “suspected of being part of a ring of middlemen” between Russia and “Taliban-linked militants.”
The 'hawala' banking system does not actually use electronic transfers. Moreover, the article says the Afghan security forces found “a half-million dollars” – presumably in cash – in one Kabul home about six months ago. Safiullah Amiry, described as “the deputy provincial council chief” in Kunduz, “said the Afghan intelligence agency had told him the raids were related to Russian money being dispersed [sic] to militants.”
In the original article, the Times claimed President Donald Trump had been briefed on this alleged plot sometime in March. The White House, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have since denied this.
So the narrative has now shifted, with the Times citing “two officials” who say the information was included in Trump’s written presidential daily brief (PDB) “in late February,” accompanied by the – likewise unverified – claim that Trump typically doesn’t read those. The article also claims the CIA mentioned the intelligence in its World Intelligence Review newsletter, also known as The Wire, dated May 4.
The identity of the suspected recipients of the “Russian bounties” has shifted as well, from the Taliban to “criminals closely associated with the Taliban” – according to yet another anonymous US official.
Most mainstream US media outlets and the Democrats have taken the original New York Times reporting at face value, denouncing Trump as “Putin’s puppet” and a traitor for allegedly not doing anything to “punish Russia” based on the purported intelligence assessments, rather than demanding to see evidence there was anything to it.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany:
"The president does read [the PDB] and he also consumes intelligence verbally. This president, I'll tell you, is the most informed person on planet Earth when it comes to the threats that we face." pic.twitter.com/Y6jzzShyJX
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany rejected the insinuations that Trump does not read the daily briefings, and said that he was briefed on what’s in “public domain” after the Times published its story. In CNN’s interpretation, that became “Trump has now been briefed on what was in his daily written intelligence briefing back in February.”
The White House says Trump has now been briefed on what was in his daily written intelligence briefing back in February, per the NYT.
If the world wasn’t already scary enough, Google has decided to bring dinosaurs into the mix. The tech giant’s latest search update includes augmented reality prehistoric monsters, but where are the feathers?
Google is expanding the augmented reality (AR) roster of creatures available in Google Search, allowing users to now bring dinosaurs directly into their homes via their mobile phones.
From Tuesday onward, 10 of the world’s most-loved dinosaurs can be brought (back) to life, so to speak.
The list of dinos which made the cut include the king of all dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, as well as firm favorites such as the velociraptor, triceratops, spinosaurus, and the prickly stegosaurus.
Available since last year, the AR feature has grown to encompass all manner of educational items from animals to cells to NASA models.
The depiction of dinosaurs in popular culture has been frequently met with ire from the scientific community. Upon the release of Jurassic World in 2015, paleontologists announced their disappointment in how the protagonists of their field were depicted on screen. Featherless and scaled, some commentators stated that the film was a “major step backward for accuracy.”
With Google’s AR dinos, the reason why the models are reminiscent of those popularized by the Jurassic Park series — and not covered in feathers as they are believed to have been — is because they are the result of a partnership with Universal, the studio behind the Jurassic franchise.
Also involved in the partnership is games developer Ludia, which is behind the Jurassic World Alive AR game — the source of the 10 dinosaur renderings.
To resurrect the classic dinos, all users need to do is search with their phone’s browser for one of the named species on Google, scroll down and tap on the ‘view in 3D’ option.
This will bring the dinosaur into your surroundings, where it can be placed within a photo or even within a video recording. Although stationary, the dinosaur is animated to act like the real deal, acting like the living breathing, roaring monsters seen in the film series.
This isn’t the only recent example of dinosaur-related AR news. In June, the UK’s Royal Mint released the Dinosauria Collection, a selection of 50p coins dedicated to dinosaurs that have the added feature of augmented reality — the first time AR has been used on a coin.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will station special “Rapid Deployment Teams” around the country for the July 4 holiday to guard monuments from vandalism, following numerous attempts by activists to tear down statues.
Police officers specially trained in crowd and riot control will deploy to a number of American cities for the weekend surrounding Independence Day, including Seattle, Portland and Washington, DC, Fox News reported, citing an unreleased DHS memo.
“The upcoming July 4th holiday weekend has the potential for increased disruptive activity at specific locations across the country that could threaten our personnel and the Federal facilities and property they protect,” wrote acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf in the memo, adding “DHS will be forward leaning in preparing to protect federal facilities and property.”
The move comes as US President Donald Trump takes up an increasingly aggressive stance toward vandals, vowing to unleash “serious force” on those who deface statues or monuments. In recent weeks, anti-racism protesters spurred on by the police killing of George Floyd have descended on a variety of different monuments around the US, vandalizing and in some cases outright destroying the statues, many of which they deem a celebration of slavery, the Confederacy or other historical abuses. Protesters in DC, for example, fixed ropes to a statue of former US President Andrew Jackson last week, attempting to topple the bronze sculpture before being driven away by police pepper spray.
Last Friday, Trump signed an executive order mandating the protection of American monuments, memorials and statues, reiterating that vandals would face “long prison terms” of up to 10 years. The DHS deployment comes as a result of that order, according to Fox.
In addition to the special police teams stationed in cities, extra regional units will remain on standby, ready to deploy to any area in a matter of hours in the event of unrest. The Federal Protective Service, another policing body, will also have a beefed up presence around certain government facilities.
George Galloway has said Latvia’s decision to ban RT channels could be seen as a “compliment,” indicating that Western viewers are sick of watching and reading mainstream media and seeking out alternatives.
Latvia’s National Electronic Media Council (NEPLP) announced on Tuesday that it would prohibit seven RT channels from broadcasting in the country.
Galloway told RT that there is “no question” that the country’s authorities have been blinded by Russophobia in making the decision. Indeed, perhaps that blindness is so severe that it prevented the Latvian regulator from doing some fact-checking before announcing the move.
The NEPLP rationalized the ban by falsely claiming that RT is “controlled” by Dmitry Kiselyov, who is under EU sanctions. Kiselyov is actually the head of another news organization, Rossiya Segodnya — and has nothing to do with RT.
Galloway, a former British MP, said the move to prohibit RT broadcasting is a sign that Western people are “looking elsewhere” for news and that authorities in those countries want to shut down different perspectives, despite claiming to be committed to the ideals of free speech and media. It’s a “crisis of information,” he said.
The West has “coasted for the best part of a hundred years” on the myth that it stands for freedom of the press and that this distinguishes it from authoritarian societies.
Galloway, who hosts the show ‘Sputnik’ on RT, said authorities around the world are now all “dancing to the same tune” in an effort to stamp out competing voices because “nobody believes mainstream media” anymore.
In that sense, banning RT could be seen as a “compliment,” he said.
Galloway also suggested that some other EU countries might try to follow suit and “mimic” Latvia’s move, though such a scenario would require others to also disregard basic facts.
The International Federation of Journalists condemned Latvia’s decision on Tuesday, saying it “violates freedom of the press” and calling it a “clear act of censorship.”
Hundreds of Facebook profiles said to be part of a “violent anti-government network” linked to the loose-knit “boogaloo” movement have been permanently deleted, the latest in a wave of mass bans targeting the political right.
Some 220 accounts, 106 groups and 28 pages were scrubbed from Facebook on Tuesday, the company said in a statement, alleging they were tied to a “dangerous organization” that had carried out real acts of violence. Ninety-five accounts on Facebook-owned Instagram also got the boot.
“This violent network is banned from having a presence on our platform and we will remove content praising, supporting or representing it,” Facebook said in announcing the decision.
Acts of real-world violence and our investigations into them are what led us to identify and designate this distinct network.
The accounts in question were “actively promoting violence against civilians, law enforcement and government officials,” the company went on, adding that they had worked to recruit others within the “broader boogaloo movement,” a loosely organized group of activists who see civil conflict as inevitable and prepare for a coming societal collapse. Though the movement – largely based online and heavily steeped in meme culture – has been widely tarred as “far-right” and “extremist,” its members have an eclectic range of views, including libertarians and conservatives as well as more militant nationalists and even neo-Nazis.
While Facebook cited no specific examples of real-world violence from the group – which derives its name from a 1984 breakdancing flick, ‘Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo’ – a number of alleged members have been accused of carrying out attacks on police and conspiring to destroy government property amid ongoing protests over the law enforcement killing of George Floyd, among other things. Direct affiliation to the group has not been clear in all cases, however.
The Facebook bans come amid a renewed push to cleanse social media platforms of conservatives and those right-of-center, with similar purges on Monday targeting pro-Trump accounts on Twitch and Reddit, as well as a number of other right-leaning figures on YouTube. Such mass-bans have become commonplace in recent years, at times appearing coordinated across different platforms.
Facebook drew heated criticism following the deletions, with a number of netizens asking why Antifa-linked accounts – a decentralized grouping of radical leftists who often engage in violent ‘direct action’ at protests – still had not seen a similar purge.
Why don’t they move the hundreds of #Antifa pages? 💁🏻♂️ Facebook removes hundreds of boogaloo accounts for ‘promoting violence’ in coordinated takedown https://t.co/vCn91jJmTo
While Facebook claimed to distinguish between the wider boogaloo movement and particular individuals inciting violence, keyword-based algorithmic bans appear to have already swept up unrelated accounts – perhaps a harbinger of things to come. One user who said he had never heard of the group was nonetheless caught up in the purge, stating he merely belonged to a Facebook group that parodied the same film title.
Yeah, well, it looks like @Facebook's algorithm did a bad job at implementing this ban. I've never heard of this group, and yet they purged my account with no warning for being part of a five-year-old group devoted to... no joke... LARPing. "LARPing 2: Electric Boogaloo." Sad.
US President Donald Trump’s plan to draw down the US contingent in Germany has been set in motion, with the Pentagon saying that 9,500 troops out of 34,500 stationed there will be removed pending consultations with allies.
“The Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff briefed the President yesterday on plans to redeploy 9,500 troops from Germany,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement on Tuesday, noting that the proposal had already been approved.
The plan to scale back the US military presence in Germany was made public by Trump earlier this month. He did not reveal the timeline for the withdrawal, and it was not immediately clear where they would be heading. The US contingent in Germany is expected to be slashed by 9,500 troops, meaning that Washington will still have a sizable 25,000-strong presence there.
Trump said that the pullout was in response to Berlin falling short of meeting a 2 percent GDP threshold in NATO defense spending, which was agreed back under the Obama administration. Although only eight countries so far have met the target, Trump directed his anger at Berlin, calling it “delinquent” in its payments to NATO and arguing that the country owes “billions” to the US-led military alliance.
While Trump’s critics used the looming withdrawal to pounce on the Republican president, accusing him of pandering to Russia, Trump has pointed out that while “some” of the released forces “will be coming home,” the rest will be redeployed to “other places.”
Although Hoffman did not mention where the troops would be “redeployed,” saying only that the plan “will also enhance Russian deterrence, strengthen NATO” and “reassure Allies,” the most likely destination is believed to be Poland, which has already expressed interest in hosting the US troops.
During a recent visit to Washington, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Warsaw asked the US to not remove the troops from Europe at all, instead relocating them to Poland to fend off “Russian aggression.” Trump agreed that Poland indeed “would be one” of the places in Europe where the US troops would be heading, but that some would “come home.”
There have been few details about the timeline and the scenario of the removal, with the Pentagon promising to provide “timely updates to potentially affected personnel, their families and communities as planning progresses.”
With uncertainty reigning over the future of the German contingent, there has been growing opposition to the plan in Congress, not just from the Democrats but from Trump’s own party. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that he expects an amendment to be introduced in the committee to stall the drawdown.
In a separate move, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) prepared an amendment that, if passed, would see the funds earmarked for the redeployment to be frozen until the secretary of defense “verifies” to Congress that the pullout would not hurt NATO, US military operations or the personnel.
Hoffman said that the Pentagon will be “briefing this plan to the congressional defense committees in the coming weeks,” before reaching out to NATO allies.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan sent heavy machinery to remove concrete barricades around the CHOP ‘autonomous zone’ and called for a probe of a council member, after protesters showed up outside her residence.
Under the cover of rain on Tuesday, vehicles operated by city workers removed the barricades set up around the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP, formerly known as CHAZ), an area spanning several blocks of downtown Seattle under control of protesters – including Black Lives Matter, Antifa and anarchists – since early June.
#BREAKING: Seattle Police just showed here at #CHOP with SDOT.
Unlike Friday’s attempt to dismantle the barricades, which ended with city workers retreating after a two-hour standoff, there were no protesters physically blocking the machinery this time. Instead, they moved furniture, bins and other objects into the street afterward, according to KIRO-TV reporter Deedee Sun.
CHOP protesters objected to the removal because “barricades save lives,” Sun reported, noting that they objected to their original deployment by the city two weeks prior. Critics of CHOP had also been opposed, saying the city was basically aiding and abetting the rioters.
Mayor Durkan had initially approved of the “autonomous zone” centered around the abandoned East Precinct police station, calling it a “summer of love” and proof of Seattle’s “democracy.” Then two African-American men were killed, and two more critically injured, in a series of shootings a week apart.
The proverbial last straw, however, seems to have been the appearance of protesters outside of Durkan’s residence. Noting that her address has been kept confidential since she was a US attorney in Seattle during the Obama administration, Durkan accused the protesters of putting “families and children at risk."
The stunt led the mayor to denounce Councilmember Kshama Sawant, a socialist who has joined forces with the protesters. Durkan has now asked the council to investigate Sawant over allowing protesters into City Hall earlier this month, encouraging the occupation of the East Precinct to begin with, and finally leading the protesters to Durkan’s residence.
Sawant responded by admitting that she “marched, rallied, and organized” with the local community – including her office staff – in the name of racial, environmental and economic justice, accusing Durkan of having “utterly failed working people and communities of color in this city.”
She further accused the mayor of being a “corporate politician desperately looking to distract from her failures of leadership and politically bankrupt administration,” having once been a progressive ally. Sawant echoed the demands of the protesters to reverse “racist gentrification,” de-fund the city police, and fund the Green New Deal instead.
Just remember: As Durkan calls out Sawant, as Sawant calls out Durkan, as Sawant and Gonzalez deflect blame for violence in #CHOP, as the city tells people to leave CHOP but doesn't make them ...
CHOP/CHAZ was initially described as a peaceful protest against police brutality over the death of George Floyd in Minnesota. It has resulted in two homicides in under a month so far; that’s how many were recorded in the entire Capitol Hill neighborhood in all of 2019.
Seattle councilmembers say we should reject any claim #CHOP plays a role in the recent violence seen on Capitol Hill. Here's some perspective. @SeattlePD crime stats point to 2 homicides in Cap Hill in all of 2019. There have been 2 homicides in Cap Hill the past 10 days #Q13FOXpic.twitter.com/CbwIC6ir6y
A gas leak caused a huge blast and fire at a medical clinic in northern Tehran, leaving more than a dozen people dead and several others injured, Iranian officials have said.
Iran's ISNA news agency was among the first to publish footage of clouds of black smoke above the city. Other videos posted to social media, which purported to have captured the incident, showed intense flames and a descending whirl of sparks.
The emergency services later said the blast rocked Sina Athar Medical Clinic, not far from Tajrish Square, one of the busiest areas of the capital. It was likely caused by the explosion of a gas cylinder used to store liquefied gas for medical purposes.
Iranian authorities also warned curious onlookers from gathering outside the burning clinic due to the danger posed to them by the fire and the Covid-19 pandemic. Iran has been heavily hit by the coronavirus, with more than 225,000 confirmed cases and almost 10,700 fatalities.
Britain’s economy has seen its largest contraction in more than four decades, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The nation’s gross domestic product plunged further than expected, by 2.2 percent.
That’s the biggest decline since the third quarter of 1979. The ONS had previously estimated a two percent drop, but it revised the figure after data showed a record 6.9 percent slump in March.
According to recent ONS monthly figures, the economy nosedived by 20.4 percent in April, which is the largest drop in a single month since records began. The decline was three times greater than that seen during the whole of the 2008-9 economic downturn.
Earlier this month, the Bank of England warned the economy may have contracted by 20 percent in the first half of 2020.
“Our more detailed picture of the economy in the first quarter showed GDP shrank a little more than first estimated,” said Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician at the ONS. “All main sectors of the economy shrank significantly in March as the effects of the pandemic hit.”
Statistics showed the household savings ratio soared to 8.6 percent in the first quarter from 6.6 percent in the previous three months, reflecting the cutback in consumer spending. Athow said that “the sharp fall in consumer spending at the end of March led to a notable increase in households' savings.”
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to report on the economy on Tuesday and to set out plans to accelerate £5 billion (over $6 billion) of spending on infrastructure projects.
Britain’s current account deficit ballooned to £21.1 billion ($26 billion) during the quarter, from £9.2 billion ($11 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Police have evacuated the Quatre Temps shopping center in western Paris. Though no official explanation has been given, reports have speculated about an armed man spotted in the area.
In a message posted to Twitter, police asked the public to avoid the area while they conducted a threat assessment operation at the center.
The head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a video conference to discuss the Afghan peace process, the Islamist group said on Tuesday. The aim was to remove hurdles in the path to peace talks.
Increasing violence and a contentious prisoner swap between the government in Kabul and the Taliban have delayed inter-Afghan negotiations that were to have begun in March, Reuters said.
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen tweeted that Monday’s talks between the official, Mullah Baradar, and Pompeo focused on full implementation of the Doha accord and the withdrawal of foreign troops, as well as the release of prisoners, intra-Afghan talks, and a reduction in fighting.
“Baradar once again reiterated that the Taliban are committed not to let anyone use Afghan soil [to launch attacks] against any country,” Shaheen said.
British Health Minister Matt Hancock has said that new, unspecified legal changes will be implemented in order to enforce the localized lockdown in the city of Leicester in the face of a particularly severe coronavirus outbreak.
The city has witnessed a surge in infections in the past month, with Leicester alone accounting for roughly 10 percent of all positive cases in the UK last week, according to figures published Monday. The city’s infection rate is three times higher than the next hardest-hit cities, but authorities do not yet understand why the outbreak has been so severe.
“We will be bringing forward a legal change very shortly, in the next couple of days, because some of the measures that we’ve unfortunately had to take in Leicester will require a legal underpinning,” Hancock said Tuesday, adding that authorities are particularly concerned by the number of children testing positive for coronavirus.
“The risk to children themselves is very low but, of course, children can still transmit,” Hancock added, explaining the “heavy hearted” decision to close schools in the area.
Leicester is the first part of the UK to face a targeted local lockdown amid the easing of restrictions elsewhere in the country beginning on July 4. However, local authorities are bemused by the lack of specific information on what the lockdown will actually entail and how exactly they are expected to enforce it.
Leicester City Mayor Peter Soulsby dismissed suggestions that there would be police roadblocks but added that there has been no guidance on where exactly the lockdown boundary exists, joking that it might simply be three miles north and south of the city center for all he knows.
“Whether it’s a blue line on a map or a radius from the clock tower, we all need to know and as yet we don’t,” Soulsby said, adding that the local council doesn’t have the resources to enforce a lockdown itself.
The UK has recorded over 43,500 confirmed Covid-19 deaths amid one of the worst outbreaks of the coronavirus in the Western world.
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China’s manufacturing and services sectors expanded in June, beating last month’s results and economists’ expectations, but the coronavirus crisis still hinders economic recovery.
The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the country’s manufacturing sector rose to 50.9 in June, up from 50.6 in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday. A reading above 50 reflects growth in factory output, while a reading below signals contraction.
This was slightly above economists’ forecasts, as analysts polled by Reuters expected the index to stand at 50.4, and those surveyed by Bloomberg predicted 50.5.
The statistics agency said that manufacturing growth was supported by stronger supply and demand, with the index for new orders rising for two consecutive months. In June, it hit 51.4, up 0.5 percent from May’s 50.9.
Data released on Tuesday also shows that another indicator of economic health, the official non-manufacturing PMI, came in at 54.4 in June, gaining 0.8 percent in one month. The figure has been rising for four consecutive months, but in June it posted the fastest growth since last November.
“The latest survey data suggest that economic growth accelerated in June thanks to a faster recovery in manufacturing and services, alongside continued strength in construction activity,” Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics wrote, adding that the recovery should remain robust in the coming months.
Although both the import and export indices improved as countries are starting to reopen, external demand remained sluggish, the NBS noted. The index for new export orders rose by more than seven percentage points to 42.6 for the month of June, but remained below the critical point, according NBS senior official Zhao Qinghe.
He also stressed that some “uncertainties” continue to exist both inside and outside China. The external market is under pressure as countries are still battling with the deadly virus. Domestically, Chinese small firms are suffering more than larger businesses, while some industries, including textile and wood processing, are struggling to return to normal.
The king of Belgium has become the country’s first reigning monarch to express regret over colonial wrongs in Congo. It comes amid demands to remove more statues of the notorious King Leopold II from Belgian cities.
“I would like to express my deepest regrets for these wounds of the past, the pain of which is now rekindled by the discrimination still too present in our societies,” King Philippe wrote in a letter to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi, quoted by Belgian media.
The Belgian rule of Congo saw “acts of violence and cruelty” that inflicted “suffering and humiliation” on the people of the African nation, the monarch acknowledged, marking the first time a reigning king of Belgium has apologized for the deeds of the past.
Belgium, a former colonial power, and DRC, which gained independence from Brussels back in 1960, “must be able to speak of our long common history in all truth and serenity,” Philippe stated.
The country’s colonial legacy came back into the limelight during massive anti-racism protests in Belgium in recent weeks. Protesters focused their rage on King Leopold II, the infamous owner of Congolese lands, whose heavy-handed rule saw millions of Africans die in the second half of the 19th century.
A first cousin of Queen Victoria, Leopold effectively turned Congo into his own fiefdom, making a huge fortune from collecting ivory and then harvesting and processing rubber.
Amid growing outrage, Leopold’s statues have been defaced in numerous Belgian cities and removed in Brussels and Antwerp. Local protest voices also demanded that the remaining monuments to the king be removed and that parks, streets, and squares named after him be given other toponyms.
For those supporting the divisive figure, Leopold II was the one who defended Belgium’s sovereignty and spearheaded ambitious construction projects still in use today. Earlier this month, Prince Laurent, Philippe’s younger brother, said their ancestor wasn’t responsible for the atrocities in Congo as he had never been there.
The royal court of Belgium refrained from commenting on the matter during the course of this month – until King Philippe broke the silence with the surprise letter to the DRC leader.
The king of Belgium has become the country’s first reigning monarch to express regret over colonial wrongs in Congo. It comes amid demands to remove more statues of the notorious King Leopold II from Belgian cities.
“I would like to express my deepest regrets for these wounds of the past, the pain of which is now rekindled by the discrimination still too present in our societies,” King Philippe wrote in a letter to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi, quoted by Belgian media.
The Belgian rule of Congo saw “acts of violence and cruelty” that inflicted “suffering and humiliation” on the people of the African nation, the monarch acknowledged, marking the first time a reigning king of Belgium has apologized for the deeds of the past.
Belgium, a former colonial power, and DRC, which gained independence from Brussels back in 1960, “must be able to speak of our long common history in all truth and serenity,” Philippe stated.
The country’s colonial legacy came back into the limelight during massive anti-racism protests in Belgium in recent weeks. Protesters focused their rage on King Leopold II, the infamous owner of Congolese lands, whose heavy-handed rule saw millions of Africans die in the second half of the 19th century.
A first cousin of Queen Victoria, Leopold effectively turned Congo into his own fiefdom, making a huge fortune from collecting ivory and then harvesting and processing rubber.
Amid growing outrage, Leopold’s statues have been defaced in numerous Belgian cities and removed in Brussels and Antwerp. Local protest voices also demanded that the remaining monuments to the king be removed and that parks, streets, and squares named after him be given other toponyms.
For those supporting the divisive figure, Leopold II was the one who defended Belgium’s sovereignty and spearheaded ambitious construction projects still in use today. Earlier this month, Prince Laurent, Philippe’s younger brother, said their ancestor wasn’t responsible for the atrocities in Congo as he had never been there.
The royal court of Belgium refrained from commenting on the matter during the course of this month – until King Philippe broke the silence with the surprise letter to the DRC leader.
Arizona has announced that businesses and public venues will be shuttered in an effort to combat a rise in coronavirus cases. Several other states have slowed the lifting of coronavirus restrictions amid rising risks.
Starting on Monday evening, bars, gyms, movie theaters, and waterparks will be prohibited from operating, Governor Doug Ducey said. Public gatherings of more than 50 people will also be banned. He said the provisions will be in place for at least a month, and urged Arizona residents to celebrate July 4 by “staying home” and wearing a mask if they choose to go out.
The governor claimed that re-imposing lockdown measures was necessary in order to “relieve stress on our health care system and give time for new transmissions to slow.”
We must be clear-eyed. The next few weeks will be hard. But these steps combined with stepped-up compliance with public health guidance can make a difference, and we're grateful to Arizonans for their cooperation.
Coronavirus cases have been drastically on the rise in Arizona since the beginning of June.
Several other states have slowed down re-opening measures amid a growing number of new cases. Texas closed its bars and reduced restaurant occupancy to 50 percent. Florida has re-imposed similar restrictions.
Demonstrators who marched through a gated community in St. Louis are being investigated for trespassing and assault, local media reported, after footage of an armed couple protecting their home from the mob went viral.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey have been criticized for pointing guns – an assault rifle and a pistol – at the protesters and demanding that they leave their private neighborhood. But it appears that St. Louis police believe the demonstrators were in the wrong. Law enforcement is investigating Sunday’s incident as a case of trespassing and fourth-degree assault by intimidation, according to the St. Louis Dispatch.
The McCloskeys claim that the crowd broke an iron gate leading to the private community and began shouting threats and obscenities as they approached their home. It was only then that the couple armed themselves and stood guard on their front lawn.
Footage of the confrontation shows the duo shouting down the protesters as they point their weapons at them. “Get out! Private property, get out!” Mark McCloskey is heard shouting.
Although police are reportedly focusing their investigation on the protesters, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner appears to have taken a different view of the altercation.
In a statement released on Monday, she claimed that the “peaceful” protesters were “met by guns and a violent assault.” She said that her office was launching its own probe into the events and “will use the full power of Missouri law to hold people accountable.”
Reports of slightly elevated radiation levels over Northern Europe were blamed on Moscow by Western media – accusations that appear to stem from a botched translation. The Kremlin says Russia has registered no nuclear incidents.
“We have an absolutely advanced radiation levels safety monitoring system and there are no emergency alarms [that went off],” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday responding to the allegations of a nuclear incident on Russian territory.
State nuclear energy agency Rosatom also said that all the readings reported by its monitoring systems remain within the normal range.
A slight increase in the levels of radioactivity over Northern Europe was detected by several monitoring stations in Finland, Sweden, and Norway in the first half of June. The spike was later acknowledged by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).
The CTBTO said the increase was not harmful to people. The organization’s executive director, Lassina Zerbo, tweeted that the isotopes “most likely” came from a “civil source.” The organization also shared a map of the area where the source of radiation might have been located. The marked area covers parts of Sweden, Finland, and Russia.
22 /23 June 2020, RN #IMS station SEP63 #Sweden🇸🇪 detected 3isotopes; Cs-134, Cs-137 & Ru-103 associated w/Nuclear fission @ higher[ ] than usual levels (but not harmful for human health). The possible source region in the 72h preceding detection is shown in orange on the map. pic.twitter.com/ZeGsJa21TN
It did not take long for the blame game to begin, with Moscow seemingly being assigned its usual role of scapegoat.
The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) said on Friday that the composition of the nuclear elements indicates an “incident involving a fuel element of a nuclear reactor.” The initial version of the report, published in Dutch, claimed that the radiation came “from the direction of Western Russia.”
The claim was swiftly picked up by Western media, with many outlets interpreting the report as all but certain proof that the mysterious nuclear “event” could be traced back to Russia.
When the media and internet were already rife with speculation, the RIVM amended the original report. Blaming a “mistranslation” for the confusion, the Dutch researchers said it was impossible to determine the exact source of the radiation.
The now revised report (which has since been translated into English) states, rather vaguely, that based on “calculations,” they believe that “the arrival [of isotopes] at the measuring stations took place from a South East direction.”
“The possible source location, therefore, covers a large area, and a more specific location for the source cannot be determined owing to the limited number of measurements,” it now reads.
While downplaying its report of the alleged Russian trace in the newest nuclear mystery, the RIVM could not resist patting itself on the back for being “able to locate the source more accurately” in a “similar situation” in 2017. Back then, a large increase in ruthenium-106 levels was detected in the air over several European countries. Despite any actual proof, many were quick to blame Russia, claiming its Mayak nuclear facility, located in the Urals, was behind the leak. Moscow did not report any nuclear incidents at the time, suggesting instead that a derelict satellite that burned up in the atmosphere might have been behind the radioactive scare.
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