Saturday, June 17, 2017

Six in The Morning Saturday June 17


Seven missing after USS Fitzgerald collides with merchant ship off Japan


Rescuers search for crew as destroyer’s captain airlifted to hospital after incident 62 miles off the coast

Seven US navy sailors are missing and three others are being treated for injuries after their destroyer collided with a container ship off the east coast of Japan on Saturday morning.
US and Japanese rescue teams were continuing their search for the missing crew members – who have not been named – more than 12 hours after the USS Fitzgerald collided with the ACX Crystal, a Philippine-registered container ship, about 62 miles (100km) south-west of the military port city of Yokosuka.
Initial fears that the guided missile destroyer was at risk of sinking receded after US navy officials said flooding in three damaged sections of the vessel had been brought under control.


Grief turns to anger as protesters march over London tower fire response

Protesters in London have demanded justice in the wake of a deadly high-rise tower fire that left dozens of residents dead and missing. Prime Minister Theresa May has been rebuked for her response to the tragedy.
Hundreds of protesters on Friday stormed the local town hall in Kensington and Chelsea, the borough where a fire ripped through a high-rise tower block earlier this week, leaving 30 people dead and scores unaccounted for.
Anger is mounting amid reports that Grenfell Tower, which housed around 600 people in 120 apartments, was in an unsafe condition and that council officials had ignored complaints from residents about safety violations.
The local council owned the 1970s tower block and was responsible for its maintenance.
Insulation panels recently installed on the 24-story tower are thought to have helped the fire spread rapidly from one floor to the next. On Friday, The Guardian newspaper reported that contractors had chosen to install a cheaper, less flame-resistant type of paneling when the tower was renovated last year.

Social media: A smuggler's best friend

Ghazwan Kronfol


Smugglers now regularly use social media and smartphone apps to promote their services and promise migrants a safe passage to Europe. Their goal is to convince people that their services are, in fact, safe.  
The video below, for example, shows a WhatsApp conversation between a smuggler and some migrants who crossed on an inflatable boat from the Turkish city of Izmir to the Greek island of Chios. In message after message, the smuggler gives advice and directions to the immigrants.
The video also shows how the migrants were able to send updates of their location to the smuggler using the Mobizen app, which lets users make video recordings of their smartphone screens.

US, Central America work toward common ground at security conference

United States and Central American officials agree that addressing problems of illegal immigration and drug trafficking through economic aid will benefit both sides of the border.

Ben Fox and Gisela Salomon
Associated Press

United States and Central American officials found common ground Thursday on the benefits of economic development as a way to fight violence and drug trafficking and reduce illegal immigration.
At a conference on Central American security and economic issues, officials in the administration of President Trump repeatedly said that strengthening the US border and reducing the flow of migrants – key elements of Mr. Trump's agenda – depend on stabilizing a region that has been engulfed in drug-fueled violence in recent years. Leaders of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala agreed.
Vice President Mike Pence noted the presence of 85,000 gang members in those three countries, which make up the "Northern Triangle," and said their activities "radiate outward and reach the United States" while US-bound drugs flow through Central America. Addressing those problems and the flow of migrants north requires building up the economies of the countries, he said.

The girls being sold into sex work in Myanmar


As the cycle of debt forces some into sex work, others are finding alternative ways to break the cycle of indebtedness.


The indebted

Three rows of wooden stilts elevate Than Than Htwe's house above a stagnant pond in Seikkyi Khanaungdho township, an island that lies at the convergence of the Yangon river and Twante canal in Myanmar's largest city. She shares the one-room house with eight members of her family and a scourge of deadly mosquitoes that fester in the thick, green water beneath her feet.
A television used to decorate one corner of the house, balanced on a shelf to avoid the floodwater and sewage that seeped in through the floorboards while seasonal rain thrashed the hand-built structure from above. But they no longer have to worry about the television getting wet in monsoon season. They pawned it for cash earlier this year.


HOW SANCTUARY CITIES CAN PROTECT UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS FROM ICE DATA MINING




NEW YORK CITY dodged a bullet in April when a federal judge allowed the destruction of more than 900,000 records of applicants for IDNYC, a citywide identification card program that was heavily marketed towards the vast local population of undocumented immigrants. Late last year, two state lawmakers from Staten Island filed suit under New York State’s Freedom of Information Law seeking to prevent the city from destroying the application documents for more than 900,000 city residents who had received cards through the program, IDNYC. While Assembly members Ron Castorino and Nicole Malliotakis claimed their suit had nothing to do with immigration policy, advocates and city officials saw the lawsuit as a thinly veiled attempt to preserve records that could assist Immigration & Customs Enforcement in deportations. Malliotakis has since vowed to appeal the judge’s ruling.





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