Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Japan's rising right-wing nationalism
Meet the people trying to make Japan great again
Like many other countries, Japan has seen the rise of nationalist movements in previous years. Although these Japanese movements coincide with their American and European counterparts and indeed share similarities, they are inherently and ultimately different.
This is largely in part because fringe right-wing nationalist movements in Japan have yet to create a narrative with populist appeal. Makoto Sakurai, the founder of the Japan First party, is trying to do just that. However, the nationalist sentiments that his party embodies can already be found within the platforms of Japan’s establishment politicians.
Inside North Korea's bubble in Japan
For the third Vox Borders documentary, I visited an elementary school in Japan. The kids were well-behaved and lively, exactly what you’d expect. But these kids face hostility in their birth country because they’re not ethnically Japanese. Their heritage is Korean and they identify with North Korea.
In the early 20th century, thousands of Koreans were brought to Japan to serve as laborers and, worse, “comfort women,” a euphemism for sex slaves. After Japan’s defeat in WWII, some returned to the Korean peninsula. But many of them stayed and set down roots. And a subset of these Koreans became loyal to the newly formed North Korean regime. Today, their descendants are born in Japan, speak Japanese, but are not Japanese citizens.
A dangerous dash through Kyrgyzstan's harsh winter (Video)
A perilous journey through blizzards and icy roads at death-defying altitudes to deliver mandarins.
Mandarin oranges are a prized commodity in Tajikistan, taken as a symbol of good fortune.
Two drivers from Kyrgyzstan risk their lives on dangerous roads to bring a truckload to the neighbouring Central Asian country - a 413-kilometre journey in a small, 30-year-old truck through 4,000 metre-high mountains.
Kuban and Duysha begin their adventure in Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second-largest city. If the mandarins don't freeze in the cargo hold, they will be sold for scarcely more than the cost of the duo's perilous journey through blizzards and icy roads, at death-defying altitudes.Six In The Morning Tuesday October 31
Russia-linked posts 'reached 126m Facebook users in US'
Facebook has said as many as 126 million American users may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based operatives over the past two years.
The social networking site said about 80,000 posts were produced before and after the 2016 presidential election.
Most of the posts focused on divisive social and political messages.
Facebook released the figures ahead of a Senate hearing where it - together with Twitter and Google - will detail Russia's impact on the popular sites.
Russia has repeatedly denied allegations that it attempted to influence the last US presidential election, in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.
'Terrible conditions': police uncover abuse and exploitation on farms in Sicily
Action follows Observer investigation into claims of forced labour and sexual exploitation among Romanian migrant women employed as agricultural workers
Eight arrests have been made and legal proceedings launched against 33 farming companies across Sicily, after a series of raids found 227 migrant workers trapped in forced labour conditions.
Police carried out raids on 40 farms between April and August in response to an Observer investigation that revealed the widespread forced labour and sexual exploitation of Romanian women employed as seasonal agricultural workers in Ragusa, one of Italy’s largest vegetable producing regions. Only two of the farms were found to be operating properly, according to Antonio Ciavola, head of the police unit. He said he was shocked by the conditions in which people – including a number of Romanian women – were being forced to live and work.
North Korea 'conducts mass evacuation drills and blackout exercises'
'They must realise how serious the situation is', former South Korean general says
North Korea has reportedly conducted mass evacuation drills as it prepares for the possibility of war.
South Korea-based NK News said several sources had reported the drills were being conducted in "secondary and tertiary cities and towns" over the last week.
None were observed in the capital Pyongyang and most were carried out on the pariah state's east coast, which borders the Sea of Japan.
Blackout drills, where towns turn off all light sources at night to avoid illuminating targets for the enemy, were also conducted.
Hong Kong democracy activist found guilty of sandwich 'attack'
Hong Kong democracy activist Avery Ng was Tuesday found guilty of assault for throwing a sandwich towards the city's then-leader which hit a police officer.
Ng, 40, chairman of political party the League of Social Democrats, was sentenced to three weeks in jail but released on bail pending an appeal.
It was the latest in a series of cases against democracy activists which have led to accusations of interference in the judiciary as Beijing tightens its grip on the semi-autonomous city.
Judge So Wai-tak said the sentence was a "deterrent" against what he described as "violent means" used in protests against government policies, although he acknowledged the fact that the weapon was a sandwich merited a shorter jail term.
Salvaging bodies: A doctor's everyday reality in Syria
Trauma surgeon Shazeer Majeed has worked for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Yemen, South Sudan and Iraq. He is now working in northern Syria, a region gripped by instability, and shares his day-to-day reality of trying to keep victims of war alive.
"We usually think of the remnants of war as unexploded shells, bombs or IEDs. But as a trauma surgeon working in an MSF hospital in Tal Abyad, the nearest secondary health facility to Raqqa city with surgical capacity, I have seen a different kind of remnant - the lethal injuries and damage that these weapons leave behind.
Inside view of Myanmar’s Rohingya insurgency
An Asia Times investigation into Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh shows the insurgent Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army relies on religion and coercion to recruit its sometimes reluctant members
COX'S BAZAR, OCTOBER 31, 2017 2:20 PM
Four months ago, while walking to his house from the mosque in his village in Maungdaw in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Rasheed Ali was approached by a mullah from the local madrassa, the same man who taught him to recite the Koran as a child, with an offer he literally couldn’t refuse.
The mullah, or Islamic teacher, implored him to join the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an insurgent group originally known as the Harakah Al-Yakin, or “Faith Movement”, that came to public light last October 9 in a series of coordinated lethal attacks against Myanmar’s Border Guard Police (BGP).
Monday, October 30, 2017
Paul Manafort, Who Once Ran Trump Campaign, Told to Surrender
Former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his longtime business associate Rick Gates were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 charges, including conspiracy against the U.S., Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office announced Monday.
Other charges against Manafort and Gates include money laundering, being an unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false foreign registration statements and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.
The indictment was unsealed Monday after Manafort and Gates were told to surrender to law enforcement.
It says, "In total, more than $75 million flowed through offshore accounts" and it refers to Manafort's "hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States."
Paul Manafort and his former business associate Rick Gates were told to surrender to federal authorities Monday morning, the first charges in a special counsel investigation, according to a person involved in the case.
The charges against Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, and Mr. Gates, a business associate of Mr. Manafort, were not immediately clear but represent a significant escalation in a special counsel investigation that has cast a shadow over the president’s first year in office.
Mr. Gates is a longtime protégé and junior partner of Mr. Manafort. His name appears on documents linked to companies that Mr. Manafort’s firm set up in Cyprus to receive payments from politicians and businesspeople in Eastern Europe, records reviewed by The New York Times show.
Taking Back Marawi
101 East joined the Philippine military in their final battle against ISIL in the southern city of Marawi.
ISIL captured the city of Marawi in the southern Philippines to turn it into a new caliphate of the so-called Islamic State. It was an audacious move that took the government and military by surprise.
A fierce and deadly war ensued, signalling the group's determination to bring its battle from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Ground and aerial bombardment have left Marawi in ruins. Nearly 1,000 people have been killed; 160 of them soldiers.
Six In The Morning Monday October 30
Dread, expectation hang over Washington before Mueller sweep
Updated 0635 GMT (1435 HKT) October 30, 2017
A mood of fateful anticipation is cloaking Washington, with possible arrests imminent after the federal grand jury in the Russia investigation approved its first charges.
By taking one or more people into custody, a prospect first reported by CNN Friday, Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller would create a new, perilous reality for the White House, reflecting the gravity of the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and alleged collusion by President Donald Trump's associates.
Trump and his team deny any wrongdoing, and so far there is no conclusive evidence from Mueller's closely held investigation or several congressional probes of nefarious links with the Russians.Hong Kong universities a new battleground in independence debate
Students at universities in Hong Kong fear basic freedoms are under attack from China’s creeping influence
When a handful of students decided to express an opinion on a university campus bulletin board in Hong Kong, they never imagined the backlash that would follow.
What began with a few posters emblazoned with a radical idea, that Hong Kong should split with China and become independent, eventually engulfed the entire political and academic establishment in the latest clash over shrinking freedoms in the semi-autonomous city.
Student representatives at the Chinese University of Hong Kong faced off last month with mainland classmates who screamed their opposition to the political signs and attempted to cover them, while middle-aged pro-China protesters shouted they were nothing more than “British dogs”.Mali's anti-poaching brigade protecting desert elephants from illegal hunting
Collective formed of rangers and soldiers protect herds already beset by sandstorms and terrain's harsh conditions from the bandits and al-Qaeda operatives known to crisscross regionMark Rivett-Carnac
Mali’s elephants, Africa’s northernmost herd and adapted to life in the country’s harsh desert, were in desperate need of protection.
The animals live in an unforgiving landscape southeast of Timbuktu, enduring sandstorms and blistering temperatures. To survive, they trek in search of food and water across what is thought to be the biggest migratory range of their species, more than 12,400 square miles.
But it wasn’t only climate change endangering the elephants. It was also poachers.
Thousands take to the streets of France against harassment
Thousands of people took the "Me too" online campaign against sexual harassment and assault started by the Harvey Weinstein affair onto the streets of France Sunday.
In Paris, the mostly female demonstrators in Republique square waved placards bearing the "#Metoo" hashtag used by tens of thousands of women in the past two weeks to share accounts of being pestered or abused.
"Metoo by a colleague", read a sign carried by one woman. "Metoo by a fellow activist" read another.
Similar gatherings were also held in Marseille, Bordeaux and Lille, among other cities.
According to Paris police, 2,500 people turned out for the rally in the French capital. Elsewhere the numbers were smaller, with one or two hundred turning up for each march.
“A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN” IS THE MOST TERRIFYING MOVIE YOU CAN WATCH THIS HALLOWEEN
Jon Schwarz
THE OBSCURE 2008 movie “Synecdoche, New York,” written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, originated when Sony Pictures Classics approached Kaufman about creating a horror film. Kaufman, best known for deeply wacky scripts like “Being John Malkovich,” agreed. But he wasn’t interested in making the kind of paint-by-numbers movie for teenagers that appears to take place in another dimension. Instead, he later said, he wanted to make a horror film for adults, “about things that are scary in the real world, and in our lives.”
I can attest that Kaufman succeeded. In fact, I found “Synecdoche, New York” so frightening that I’ll never watch it again. Slasher movies like “Friday the 13th” and its 11 sequels are ultimately pleasurable — they end and you wake up from the dream buzzing with the adrenaline evolution gives you to escape predators, yet realize you are not in fact being stalked by Jason Voorhees. But when “Synecdoche, New York” is over and the lights come up, you understand that what was hunting its characters is hunting you too, outside the theater, in reality.
Kim Jong-un visits cosmetics factory with wife and sister
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited a cosmetics factory in Pyongyang, accompanied by his wife Ri Sol-ju and sister Kim Yo-jong.
State media released undated photos of the visit on Sunday. Both women are rarely seen in public.
Ms Kim's appearance comes shortly after her recent promotion to a powerful position in North Korea's government.
Foreign luxury goods including make-up have become scarce in North Korea after several rounds of UN sanctions.
Why did he visit a cosmetics factory?
Over the years many countries have stopped importing luxury goods into North Korea as a result of sanctions.
North Korea appears to have developed its own cosmetics industry, with reports of local "high-end" brands such as Bomhyanggi and Unhasu becoming popular with consumers.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Liberation or obliteration? Telling the Raqqa story
How media on different sides of the Syrian war portrayed the capture of Raqqa from ISIL. Plus, Syria's Lebanon refugees.
Competing narratives on Raqqa
More than three years ago, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, which is also known as ISIS) captured the city of Raqqa and declared it the capital of its caliphate.
Images that emerged from the city, of atrocities used as propaganda, have been some of the most gruesome and distressing media output to emerge from a war that continues to cause untold suffering.
When the Syrian Democratic Forces finally rolled into al-Naim Square, Western journalists travelling with them told a story of triumph and liberation.
Six In The Morning Sunday October 29
Catalan crisis: Carles Puigdemont 'welcome' to run in poll
The Spanish government has said it would welcome the participation of sacked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont in new elections.
The central government in Madrid has ordered that fresh elections for the regional parliament of Catalonia should take place in December.
It stripped Catalonia of its autonomy after the Catalan parliament voted to declare independence.
Mr Puigdemont is urging "democratic opposition" to direct rule from Madrid.
He condemned the suspension of Catalonia's autonomy and promised to continue to "work to build a free country".
Spain has been gripped by a constitutional crisis since an independence referendum, organised by Mr Puigdemont's separatist government, was held earlier this month in defiance of a ruling by the Constitutional Court which had declared it illegal.
Battle for the mother land: indigenous people of Colombia fighting for their lands
The 50-year civil war is over but, in the Cauca Valley, indigenous communities are on frontline of fight against drug gangs, riot police and deforestation
A green-and-red flag flies over a cluster of bamboo and tarpaulin tents on the frontline of an increasingly deadly struggle for land and the environment in Colombia’s Cauca Valley.
It is the banner for what indigenous activists are calling the “liberation of Mother Earth”, a movement to reclaim ancestral land from sugar plantations, farms and tourist resorts that has gained momentum in the vacuum left by last year’s peace accord between the government and the paramilitaries who once dominated the region – ending, in turn, the world’s longest-running civil war.
The ragtag outpost in Corinto has been hacked out of a sugar plantation, destroyed by riot police, then reoccupied by the activists, who want to stop supplying coca (the main ingredient for cocaine) to drug traffickers in the mountains by cultivating vegetables on the plains instead.
Warlord CityThe Business of Fear in Boomtown Mogadishu
Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, is a city with little functioning infrastructure and a relentless cascade of violence. But some inhabitants of the city have been able to take advantage of the ongoing civil war to make themselves rich, and their business is feeding the horror.
The first courses had just been served when the war came to the country club in Mogadishu. Fifty guests, including businesspeople and government officials, were sitting at long tables laden with bowls of camel stew, goat meat, lobster and swordfish. When a van filled with explosives detonated in front of the gate, the resulting explosion demolished part of the protective wall, blew the second floor right off the villa and destroyed the building's entire front.
Four attackers then fired at the country club's security staff with assault rifles and, when they returned fired, stormed a nearby restaurant. By the time the last fighter was finally shot dead 12 hours later, three gunmen and 16 guests had been killed.
Powder keg on Manus Island as refugees refuse to leave immigration center
Updated 0133 GMT (0933 HKT) October 29, 2017
A confrontation is looming in Papua New Guinea (PNG) between local authorities and more than 700 men who are refusing to leave an Australian-run immigration processing center.
The center on Manus Island is set to be cleared Monday, but many of the refugees and asylum seekers claim they'll be attacked if they leave the security of the compound's wire fences by locals who don't want them there.
Those at the center include 551 refugees and 167 other asylum seekers whose claims were rejected by the Australian government.
Rouhani: Iran will continue to produce missiles
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said Tehran will continue to produce missiles for defence purposes and does not believe its missile development programme violates international accords.
In a speech to parliament on Sunday, Rouhani also hit out at the US, calling negotiations with Washington "madness."
"We have built, are building and will continue to build missiles," the 68-year-old was quoted by State TV as saying.
Typhoon Saola packing more rain for Pacific coast as it rumbles toward Tokyo
KYODO
Typhoon Saola was churning along the Pacific coast of Honshu on Sunday, with the Meteorological Agency saying the storm would dump more heavy rain on much of the country through Monday.
The season’s 22nd typhoon, was 170 km south of Cape Muroto in Kochi Prefecture as of 2 p.m. and had an atmospheric pressure of 975 hectopascals. It was heading north-northeast at a speed of 35 kph.
The Meteorological Agency warned of strong winds, river flooding caused by heavy rain and mudslides.
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Balfour 100 years on: Salvation or betrayal?
In this UpFront special we debate the history and legacy of the Balfour Declaration 100 years after its writing.
"One nation, solemnly promised to a second nation, the country of a third." That's how one writer famously described the Balfour Declaration - the declaration by then-British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, on November 2, 1917, that said, "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. [...]"
One hundred years later, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continues, with no sign of any sort of resolution. So, how central was the Balfour Declaration to later developments and what role did Britain play subsequently?
Six In The Morning Saturday October 28
Catalonia independence: Spain takes charge of Catalan government
The Spanish government has stripped Catalonia of its autonomy and taken charge of its government.
The measures early on Saturday came after the Catalan parliament voted to declare independence on Friday.
An official state bulletin dismissed Catalan leaders and handed control of Catalonia to Spain's Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.
Earlier, Spain's interior ministry took charge of Catalonia's police after firing senior Catalan police officials.
On Friday, PM Mariano Rajoy announced the dissolution of the regional parliament and the removal of the Catalan leader, and called snap local elections.
Demonstrations for and against independence went on into the night.
More are expected on Saturday, with a rally "for the unity of Spain and the constitution" to be held in Madrid.
Bangladesh to offer sterilisation to Rohingya in refugee camps
Family planning authorities have asked the government to launch vasectomies and tubectomies for women in Cox’s Bazar, where 1m refugees fight for space
Bangladesh is planning to introduce voluntary sterilisation in its overcrowded Rohingya camps, where nearly a million refugees are fighting for space, after efforts to encourage birth control failed.
More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in August triggered an exodus, straining resources in the impoverished country.
The latest arrivals have joined hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled in earlier waves from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where the stateless Muslim minority has endured decades of persecution.
Iraq may be coming to the end of 40 years of war as the government wins two big victories
They must not overplay their hand, making sure that all communities in Iraq get a reasonable cut of the national cake in terms of power, money and jobs
There is a growing mood of self-confidence in Baghdad which I have not seen here since I first visited Iraq in 1977. The country seemed then to be heading for a peaceful and prosperous future thanks to rising oil revenues. It only became clear several years later that Saddam Hussein was a monster of cruelty with a disastrous tendency to start unwinnable wars. At the time, I was able to drive safely all around Iraq, visiting cities from Mosul to Basra which became lethally dangerous over the next 40 years.
The streets of the capital are packed with people shopping and eating in restaurants far into the night. Looking out my hotel window, I can see people for the first time in many years building things which are not military fortifications. There are no sinister smudges of black smoke on the horizon marking where bombs have gone off. Most importantly, there is a popular feeling that the twin victories of the Iraqi security forces in recapturing Mosul in July and Kirkuk on 16 October have permanently shifted the balance of power back towards stability. The Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, once criticised as weak and vacillating, is today almost universally praised for being calm, determined and successful in battling Isis and confronting the Kurds.
Will Filipinos rise up against President Rodrigo Duterte?
In the face of President Rodrigo Duterte's lethal drug policy to kill users and dealers at the slightest excuse, Philippine society is gradually daring to push back. Florian Neuhof reports from Manila.
In Manila's sprawling North Cemetery, paved roads are lined with the sumptuous tombs of the wealthy. Multi-storied and ornate, they resemble comfortable family homes. In narrower alleyways, chest-high graves and towering tombstones remind of the deceased. Occasionally, a funeral procession clogs a lane, a nuisance to the graveyard's living inhabitants.
Around 5,000 squatters have settled amidst the graves, their small shacks of plywood and corrugated iron nestled in between the ostentatious final resting places of the rich. In the evenings, they gather to drink beer and listen to music. Young men play basketball on a concrete patch near one of the entrances.
Why are so many women being murdered in Uganda?
Noah Musiba sat by the door all night listening out for a noise that would signal the return of his wife. His nine-year-old daughter, Sheerat, lay on a mattress on the floor by his feet, wide awake.
It was the early hours of Thursday, September 14, and Harriet Nantongo, Noah's wife of 10 years and Sheerat's mother, had not returned from work.
"I hoped that maybe she had slept at her sister's place, but when we went to look, she wasn't there," said Noah, "so we started searching all the hospitals".
By the afternoon, Musiba reported his wife missing, fearing the worst.
Congress is a breeding ground for harassment
As workplace sexual harassment allegations grow, reports put Congress at center stage
Updated by
As more and more women go public with allegations of sexual harassment against public figures, Congress is coming under scrutiny.
Conversations with congressional aides in the wake of the revelations about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein all indicate a not-so-surprising reality on Capitol Hill: Everyone has heard of someone who has gone through hell in the workplace — from sexual assault to office abuses.
But in this major power center, workplace harassment isn’t a conversation congressional offices have until it absolutely needs to be had — whether because of a bombshell news report or a victim’s push for internal review.
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