Thursday, May 31, 2018
Kosovo: Murder in Mitrovica
What does the killing of a Kosovo Serb politician reveal about the deep fault lines running through the Balkan state?
Two decades ago, the small Balkan state of Kosovo was fighting to secede from neighbouring Serbia, which was resisting the final break-up of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
After NATO intervened on the side of Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanian population, the separatists won and a decade later in 2008 declared full independence.
This has since been recognised by a majority of nations in the world, but not Serbia, which still claims sovereignty over the state
Six In The Morning Thursday May 31
US presses North Korea for 'historic' plan to disarm as Pompeo meets Kim aide
State department says regime must map out denuclearisation steps it is willing to take if summit is to go ahead
The official was speaking in New York as the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and a top North Korean official, Kim Yong-chol, met over a dinner ahead of a day of talks on Thursday aimed at defining negotiating positions and narrowing differences before the summit.
In a letter to Kim last week, Trump declared he was calling off the summit scheduled for 12 June in Singapore, after a spat broke out between Washington and Pyongyang over military exercises the US conducted with South Korea, and expectations of the outcome of the unprecedented meeting between the two national leaders.
Why Arkady Babchenko's strange resurrection is a PR gift for the Kremlin
Arkady Babchenko has no doubt walked into a number of press conferences in his journalism career, but few would have been like this. He was being presented by Ukrainian authorities, alive and well, a day after he had been reportedly assassinated outside his home.
The head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak said that the Russian Mr Babchenko – a staunch critic of the Kremlin – had agreed to take part in a ruse to lure contract killers to arrest. The operation had helped prevent both Mr Babchenko’s own death and a wider, unspecified terrorist attack, Mr Hrytsak claimed.
“I’m still alive,” Mr Babchenko told a startled room. “I’m sorry you had to go through this but there was no other way.”
UN warns Gaza on the brink of war
The latest escalation of fighting between Israel and Palestinian Hamas has pushed Gaza to the brink of war, the UN envoy for the Middle East warned the Security Council on Wednesday.
Nickolay Mladenov delivered the stark warning as the council remained deadlocked over how to respond to the flare-up between Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
"This latest round of attacks is a warning to all of how close to the brink of war we are every day," said Mladenov, who spoke via video link from Jerusalem.
The council met in emergency session at the request of the United States, which had asked the top UN body to condemn rocket firings by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Israel.
More Nicaragua protesters killed in Mother's Day march
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Nicaragua's capital calling on President Daniel Ortega to resign in the latest and largest anti-government protest in decades.
At least three more protesters were killed and several others wounded in Managua on Wednesday as anti-Ortega demonstrations continued and anger grows in the Latin American nation.
The Mother's Day march was organised in solidarity with the mothers of students and peaceful demonstrators who have been killed by police and pro-government forces since the start of a nationwide political crisis on April 18.
Fukushima tells world radiation is down, exports up after nuclear crisis
Fukushima Gov Masao Uchibori on Wednesday told the international community that the nuclear-crisis-hit Japanese prefecture is mostly decontaminated and that its food exports are picking up.
"Our consistent efforts over the seven years have borne fruit and recovery is under way," Uchibori said at a press conference at One World Trade Center in New York City, a site symbolizing the U.S. recovery from the tragedy of the terror attacks on Sept.11, 2001.
He said the prefecture has completed decontamination work for 97 percent of its land after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, triggered reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The governor also said the size of evacuation zones has dropped to 3 percent of prefectural land from the peak of 12 percent.
The story of Pakistan's 'disappeared' Shias
CCTV images from a local mosque show 30-year-old Naeem Haider being led away in handcuffs by more than a dozen armed men. Some have their faces covered with masks, others are in police uniform.
It was the night of 16 November 2016. Mr Haider has not been seen since. Despite the CCTV video evidence both the police and intelligence services have denied in court that he is in their custody.
Mr Haider is one of 140 Pakistani Shias to have "disappeared" over the past two years, according to community activists. Their families believe they were taken into custody by the intelligence services. Over 25 of the missing, including Mr Haider, belong to Pakistan's largest city Karachi.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Why people are buying cartoon cats on the blockchain
That’s the question behind CryptoKitties, a new game to buy, breed, and sell digital cats on the blockchain. These cats are more similar to real-world collectibles like beanie babies or baseball cards than they are to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. In just the last few months, a whole community of third party sites and services has formed around CryptoKitties. And fans have spent more than $23 million playing along. All of this is made possible by the clever and surprising code behind the game.
Six In The Morning Wednesday May 30
North Koreans dare to criticise 'vampire leader'
Speaking to ordinary citizens inside North Korea is almost impossible, with visitors heavily policed and communication with the outside world blocked. But two residents were willing to speak to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, despite the threat of death or imprisonment.
In North Korea, where leader Kim Jong-un has almost godlike status, to question him out loud is for many unthinkable.
Citizens are taught he is all-knowing, and told to inform on dissenters - including their own family members.
By speaking out, market trader Sun Hui - not her real name - knows she is putting her life at risk.
Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko shot dead in Kiev
Murder thought related to prominent journalist’s work, following threats that caused him to leave Russia in 2017
Andrew Roth in Moscow
A dissident Russian journalist has been shot at his apartment in Kiev in a high-profile murder that police said may have been tied to his reporting.
Arkady Babchenko, a veteran Russian war correspondent, was shot three times in the back as he left his apartment to buy bread. He was found bleeding by his wife. Babchenko, 41, died in the ambulance to the hospital, a government official said.
The killing appeared to be targeted. The gunman had apparently lain in wait for him outside his apartment. The head of Ukraine’s police force said that two motives were being considered: his “professional work and civil position”. Police on Wednesday evening had not named a suspect, but did post a sketch of a bearded man in a baseball hat.
Study shows that a large minority of Germans would not accept Jewish or Muslim family members
A new study shows intolerance toward Jewish and Muslim family members is most prevalent in Italy and Britain. Germany had one of the highest proportions of people not wanting Jewish family members.
Around a third of Germans would not accept a Muslim into their family, and a fifth would not accept a Jew as a family member, a study has found.
The results of the report by the US-based Pew Research Center, released on Tuesday, have come amid heightened anxiety about Islam and anti-Semitism in Germany.
What the study found
Turkish opposition calls for TVs to be turned off to avoid propaganda
Turks will head to the polls to choose their next president on June 24. Members of the opposition claim that the main media outlets, both public and private, are favouring the current government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is campaigning for re-election. In parallel, Turkish organisations and small parties are campaigning for something else – for Turks to openly debate the news.
At the beginning of May, millions of social media users believed President Erdogan when he said that he would resign if people wanted him to. The word "#Tamam" ["Enough" in English] started trending on social media. Today, the opposition is preparing to denounce what they say will be an unfair vote. In the past few years, the opposition has been subject to a series of purges and mass arrests, all after the attempted coup on July 15, 2016.
US-funded police linked to illegal executions in El Salvador
Story by and
The United States has quietly funded and equipped elite paramilitary police officers in El Salvador who are accused of illegally executing gang members, CNN has learned.
Successive US administrations have pumped tens of millions of dollars in to Salvadoran law enforcement and military to shore up the government’s “Mano Dura” or Firm Hand program, first launched in 2003 but redoubled in 2014 to tackle the country’s rampant gang problem.
Yet the country’s police will be broadly accused next month of “a pattern of behavior by security personnel amounting to extrajudicial executions” in a United Nations report, seen in advance by CNN, that will also call on Salvadoran security forces to break a “cycle of impunity” in which killings are rarely punished.
Another journalist has been killed in Mexico — the sixth this year
By KATE LINTHICUM
As a reporter for the Mexican newspaper Excelsior, Hector Gonzalez Antonio frequently chronicled the violence engulfing his home state of Tamaulipas.
Recent topics included one shootout that interrupted an Easter parade, another that killed six innocent bystanders and a group of people searching for disappeared loved ones. In January, Gonzalez wrote about the killing of a Tamaulipas journalist who was stabbed to death while waiting with his family at a stoplight.
This week, Gonzalez became another victim of what he once described as "the crisis of insecurity" in Tamaulipas. His corpse was found Tuesday on a dirt road in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria. He had been bludgeoned to death, according to the state prosecutor's office, which has not discussed possible motives.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
New Coke: Coca-Cola Company releases new line of alcoholic drinks in Japan
Hard liquor is a key ingredient in Coca-Cola’s new line of Japan-only canned cocktails.
Oddly enough, the name of the Coca-Cola Company is actually a little misleading. Yes, it does indeed produce and sell Coca-Cola, but the company actually offers many other beverages, many of which aren’t even sodas.
For example, in Japan the Coca-Cola Company also owns Aquarius, Ayataka, Georgia, and Irohasu, which are brands of sports drink, green tea, canned coffee, and bottled water, respectively.
This month it’s entering an entirely new section of the market, though, by launching analcoholic beverage. Called Lemondo, it’s exclusive to Japan, with no current plans to offer it in any of the 200-plus other countries and territories in which the Coca-Cola Company does business.
Is peace in Colombia at risk?
A fierce critic of the agreement with FARC rebels is in pole position to be president.
Colombia's presidential election race is the most divisive in decades, featuring two candidates at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Right-winger Ivan Duque leads after the first round, well ahead of leftist Gustavo Petro.
At stake in the second-round vote is the future of the peace deal signed by the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels in 2016.
Duque is opposed to it, saying it is too lenient on FARC. Petro backed it, but needs double the vote he got in the first round.
Six In The Morning Tuesday May 29
China's ramping up pressure on Taiwan
Updated 0707 GMT (1507 HKT) May 29, 2018
Beijing's push to isolate Taiwan is gathering pace, with two of the island's few remaining allies switching allegiance to China in the past month.
Taiwan isn't just taking heat from China diplomatically. Multi-national companies are being pressured over how they describe Taiwan, with Beijing insisting they follow its line that the island is an integral part of China. Shows of force by the Chinese military in the Taiwan Strait, the narrow strip of water that divides the two, are also becoming more commonplace.
This ratcheting up of tensions between China and the self-governed, democratic island opens up another fault line for Washington in its dealings with Beijing, with the Trump administration already at odds with China over trade, North Korea and the South China Sea.
The school teaching North Korean refugees how to live in the South
More than 100 students attend Yeomyung school in Seoul, where they are taught the quirks of assimilating, from using credit cards to navigating the metro
Pak Sool marched down a flight of stairs, descending into Seoul’s metro for the first time at the age of 19, only to stare at the spaghetti-bowl map of the transit system and then – feeling nervous and embarrassed – simply give up.
It was one of the many moments that have confounded the North Korean refugee since his recent arrival in the South.Shopping, using a cash machine and even understanding the South’s dialect, peppered with English slang, were also monumental challenges.
“What I saw when I came to South Korea was overwhelming,” says Pak, who arrived in Seoul at the end of 2016. “North and South Korea are totally different. I had no idea what a credit card was, and that’s used everyday here.”
Latin America's water crisis is not about millennials' avocado habit, but the human and environmental impact of food production
This kind of rhetoric plays into the schadenfreude that comes as a generation’s smug attempts to be 'woke' backfire, but in a game of food basket whack-a-mole, you ditch one product only for another to be revealed as equally ethically dubious
Avocado-munching millennials are under fire again. First, it was the smashed avocado toast controversy. Now, Chilean water rights activists are speaking out about how plantations in a region supplying avocados to Britain are illegally tapping into water that locals depend on. It’s a problem, for sure – but relentlessly shaming millennials over their diets won’t solve South America’s water issues. It’s more complicated than that.
Villagers from Petorca in the ValparaÃso growing region have saidthey don’t have enough water to cook and wash, and have to resort to contaminated water brought in by truck. British demand for avocados soared 27 per cent in 2017, and many of those came from Chile. Oh dear.
The news has prompted a flurry of criticism. “When they say guac is extra, they mean that your avocado obsession is leaving thousands in Chile disenfranchised and plagued by drought,” Vice admonishes us.
Dozens of refugees, police clash in German city of Dresden
Two police officers and a security guard were injured when fighting broke out at a migrant reception center in the eastern city of Dresden. It was the second standoff between asylum seekers and authorities in a month.
Around 50 refugees attacked police after they attempted to stop a fight at a migrant center, authorities in the eastern German city of Dresden said on Monday.
Police were called after security guards struggled to contain a dispute about food between two migrants from Georgia on Friday evening.
"As a result, about 50 residents gathered and attacked officers by throwing lit cigarettes, then kicking and beating them," a statement from Dresden police said.
MH370: Four-year hunt ends after private search is completed
The four-year hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has ended with the latest, privately funded search coming to a close.
US-based Ocean Infinity had been using a deep-sea vessel to survey a vast area of the southern Indian Ocean.
But it found nothing and Malaysia's government says it has no plans to begin any new searches.
The plane disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.
Official search efforts ended last year and there are still fierce debates about what happened to the flight.
ALLAN NAIRN ON HOW TRUMP DRAGGED A RIGHTIST REVOLUTION TO POWER
Jeremy Scahill
DONALD TRUMP HAS been in office 16 months. And the majority of media hours and column inches spent on his administration deal primarily with the Russia investigation, Stormy Daniels, and Trump’s personnel intrigue. It’s not that there isn’t great journalism being done on other issues. It’s that this narrow set of stories consume much of the energy and are on constant repeat pretty much everywhere in corporate media, except for FOX, which generally broadcasts from an alternate reality.
On Intercepted, we have found it useful to occasionally step back from the daily grind of the Trump presidency and take stock of where we are and how we got here. My friend and colleague Allan Nairn is one of the sharpest analysts of the modern history of the American empire. As a journalist, he has played a significant role in exposing the U.S. involvement and sponsorship of brutal regimes and security forces around the globe. He survived the Dili massacre in East Timor in the early 1990s, he exposed the CIA’s financing of right-wing death squads in Haiti and the agency’s support for brutal military dictators in places like Guatemala and El Salvador, and he is perhaps the foremost expert in the world on the U.S. support for the genocidal regime of Suharto in Indonesia.
Monday, May 28, 2018
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