CIA official: China wants to replace US as world superpower
Updated 0414 GMT (1214 HKT) July 21, 2018
The goal of China's influence operations around the world is to replace the United States as the world's leading superpower, the CIA's Michael Collins said Friday.
Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum during a session on the rise of China, Collins, the deputy assistant director of the CIA's East Asia Mission Center, said Chinese President Xi Jinping and his regime are waging a "cold war" against the US.
"By their own terms and what Xi enunciates I would argue by definition what they're waging against us is fundamentally a cold war, a cold war not like we saw during the Cold War, but a cold war by definition. A country that exploits all avenues of power licit and illicit, public and private, economic and military, to undermine the standing of your rival relative to your own standing without resorting to conflict. The Chinese do not want conflict," Collins said.
Nine activists defending the Earth from violent assault
On a planet of billions, nine represent the strong minority battling murder in the global corruption of land rights
Individually, they are stories of courage and tragedy. Together, they tell a tale of a natural world under ever more violent assault.
The portraits in this series are of nine people who are risking their lives to defend the land and environment in some of the planet’s most remote or conflict-riven regions.
Colombia holds first Congress with former FARC rebels
Former Colombian rebels attended Congress for the first time under a 2016 peace accord that allocates the party 10 seats. The peace deal has divided Colombia, with some saying it is too soft on the former rebels.
Ex-leftist rebels from Colombia's former guerrilla movement the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) took their seats in the country's new Congress on Friday, as it held its first annual session.
Outgoing President Jose Manuel Santos presided over a ceremony in which all new lawmakers elected in the May elections took up their seats, welcoming them to "this temple of democracy."
The 5 most important questions about carbon taxes, answered
A carbon tax can lower emissions, but it needs to be pretty damn high.
By
Carbon taxes are in the news these days. In recent months, not one but two conservative national carbon tax proposals have emerged, disrupting the usual partisan dynamic on climate policy.
First there was the proposal from the Climate Leadership Council, a group of (mostly older, retired) Republicans and centrists, which was released last year but recently gained the backing of a new big-money conservative PAC. And next week, Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), co-chair of the House Climate Solutions Caucus, plans to release a carbon-tax proposal of his own.
Neither proposal has a snowflake’s chance in hell of passage any time soon. And on Thursday, the House passed a resolution trying to squash even the possibility of a carbon tax. But the existence of these proposals does indicate a heightened level of awareness of and interest in carbon taxes. So now seems like a good opportunity to review some of the basics.
HOW A ONE-WORD LOOPHOLE WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR THE U.S. TO SELL WEAPONS TO GOVERNMENTS THAT KILL CIVILIANS
ARMS CONTROL EXPERTS are raising concerns about a possible loophole in the Trump administration’s new arms export policy, arguing that it gives the administration further cover to sell weapons to some of the world’s worst human rights violators.
When it was issued in April, the Trump administration’s Conventional Arms Transfer policy was widely panned by critics for prioritizing the profits of weapons companies ahead of transparency and human rights concerns. The White House was blunt about its intentions, promising that the executive branch would “advocate strongly on behalf of United States companies.”
But one change in particular may make it easier for American companies to sell weapons to governments that routinely kill civilians in conflicts by discounting killings that the governments claim are unintentional. The change could have a significant impact on sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — the top two U.S. weapons clients — both of which are engaged in a destructive bombing campaign in Yemen.
Beaches ravaged by 2011 tsunami open to public for 1st time in 8 years
Today 04:03 pm JST
Two beaches on Japan's northeastern coast, devastated by a massive tsunami in 2011, opened to the public for the first time in eight years Saturday, delighting residents amid a heat spell.
"I'm happy to see this beach become bustling again," said Nami Aoki, a 48-year-old woman from Fukushima city, who visited Haragamaobama beach in Soma in Fukushima Prefecture with her 9-year-old daughter. Soma is Aoki's hometown.
"I wanted my daughter to play in the sea where I would swim when I was little," Aoki said with a smile.
The beach boasted between 30,000 and 50,000 visitors during the swimming season annually before the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi plant.
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