Six In The Morning Saturday 23 March 2019

Isis defeated, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announce

Kurdish-led group says last of militants cleared from their stronghold of Baghouz, marking end of self-declared caliphate

Associated Press in Baghouz

Sat 23 Mar 2019 07.28 GMT

US-backed forces in Syria have announced the liberation of the last area held by Islamic State in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz, declaring victory over the extremist group and the end of its self-declared Islamic caliphate.

“Baghuz is free and the military victory against Daesh has been achieved,” tweeted Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, referring to the group by its Arabic acronym.

Elimination of the last Isis stronghold in Baghuz marks the end of the militants’ self-declared caliphate, which at its height blanketed large parts of Syria and Iraq. The campaign to take back the territory by the US and its partners has spanned five years and two US presidencies, unleashed more than 100,000 bombs and killed untold numbers of fighters and civilians.

Theresa May’s Brexit has been a farce – I will join the Put It To The People march to signal Scotland’s anger

This will be a huge, visible demonstration of public opposition to the Tories’ mishandling of the biggest issue of our time

Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon

Theresa May’s statement in Downing Street on Wednesday evening was shocking. Shocking in its level of denial, in its lack of humility and in its complete and utter lack of self-awareness. And shocking too in its complete refusal to take any personal responsibility for the fiasco which Brexit has become.

The prime minister should have at least acknowledged that she bears a huge share of the blame for the utter shambles which is now unfolding and which has, perhaps permanently, shredded Britain’s reputation for sensible, level-headed diplomacy and statecraft.

The PM compounded her performance on Wednesday with what followed in Brussels the next night. One aide to another EU leader described her performance, in a 90-minute address to the other 27 heads of government, as “awful, dreadful – evasive even by her standards”, adding “she didn’t have a plan so they [the other leaders] needed to come up with one for her”.

Monoculture farming wrecks the environment

Nitrogen, the miracle that destroys

Synthetic nitrogen fertilisers revolutionised agriculture and fed the world’s growing population. But a century later they are depleting the soil and poisoning the environment. Time to change policies.

by Claude Aubert

There is a paradox in plant nutrition: plants require nitrogen for growth, but while it is mostly found in the air (78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen), plants obtain it from the soil as nitrates (NO3) or ammonia (NH3), which can they absorb from humus and other organic matter such as harvest residue, manure, and compost, once they have been mineralised by bacteria.

In 1909 the German chemist Fritz Haber succeeded in combining atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen to produce ammonia. He won the 1918 Nobel prize in chemistry for this work, which allowed the development of new fertilisers that made it possible to feed a world population that rose from 1.5 billion to more than 6 billion over the 20th century. A few bags of fertiliser were enough to provide all the nitrogen to grow crops and improve yields, doubling or tripling them. Farmers no longer needed to spread manure or compost, or cultivate nitrogen-rich leguminous plants.

'Thailand's Banksy' lampoons military government ahead of elections

Updated 23rd March 2019

 

Written byOscar Holland, CNN

As Thailand prepares for Sunday's elections, not everyone in the country is optimistic about the supposed return of democracy after five years of military rule. Street artist Headache Stencil, often dubbed the "Thai Banksy," believes the odds are unfairly stacked in the ruling junta's favor.

A sculpture at his subversive new exhibition depicts the country's military leader, Prayut Chan-o-cha, playing poker against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2014 coup.

The current leader is shown holding two aces -- a winning hand -- though his pockets are visibly stuffed with other cards.

Suicide leading cause of death among Japanese children aged 10-14

Suicide has become the leading cause of death among children aged 10 to 14 in Japan for the first time in the postwar period, Kyodo News has learned, after analyzing government demographic data.

While the total number of people who committed suicide across the country has declined remarkably in recent years, the 2017 statistics released by the health ministry showed 100 children in the age group took their own lives, accounting for 22.9 percent of deaths in their generation.

Cancer came second in the age bracket, at 22.7 percent, followed by accidents at 11.7 percent.

The overall number of suicides by Japanese peaked in 2003 at more than 32,000 people before beginning to decline and fell to 20,465 in 2017. However, the number of suicides per 100,000 people in the age group of 10 to 19 has remained flat.

Trump cancels new sanctions on North Korea

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he has ordered the withdrawal of new sanctions on North Korea, possibly signaling an intention to continue denuclearization negotiations with the regime.

Trump was initially thought to be referring to sanctions the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed Thursday on two Chinese shipping companies accused of helping the North evade sanctions.

The Washington Post later reported, citing officials familiar with the matter, that Trump was in fact referring to future sanctions that had been scheduled for the coming days.