01 Apr
A Foreign Perspective, News and Analyses
A Foreign Perspective, News and Analyses
English Online International Newspapers
Nearly all of these are English-edition daily newspapers. These sites have interesting editorials and essays, and many have links to other good news sources. We try to limit this list to those sites which are regularly updated, reliable, with a high percentage of “up” time.
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Australian’s oldest living woman: still living it up at age 110
By Carolyn Webb
Happy 110th birthday: Agnes ‘Nessie’ Kluckhenn, right, and her ‘baby’ sister Williamina, 95. Credit:Eddie Jim
Some people would be happy to have all their marbles at age 70, but on her 110th birthday, Nessie Kluckhenn was not just switched on, she was cheeky.
‘‘It’s time I was looking for a third husband,’’ she declared to a roomful of amused relatives at Mayflower aged care home in Brighton on Monday. ‘‘I feel fantastic.’’
Mrs Kluckhenn, believed to be Australia’s oldest living person, held court behind posh Happy Birthday cards from the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Governor-General.
Earlier a piper in a kilt played for her and she was presented with an enormous birthday cake.
She claimed she had not had any whisky, but her relatives tittered. ‘‘I think she’s got some hidden behind the telly,’’ said one.
Living it up: Nessie Kluckhenn (waving) and her family enjoy her 110th birthday party.Credit:Eddie Jim
Despite migrating from Scotland 72 years ago, her Glaswegian accent is thicker than Billy Connolly’s.
Asked how she’s lived this long, she said, “It’s because I’m such a lovely bugger.’’ Sure she didn’t smoke — she says she was ‘‘too mean’’ to buy them. ‘‘Well I was born Scottish.’’
She did admit, however, to being a hopeless chocoholic.
Relatives flew in from Queensland and Scotland. Some she had not seen for 30 years.
Not that she is starved for company. Her sister, Williamina, a wee lass of 95, lives a few rooms down.
When Williamina was a baby, and Nessie a teenager, their mother used to insist Nessie bring Williamina as a chaperone on dates. Their father fought in the Great War, and times were tough as the eldest of seven siblings in the Glasgow suburb of St George’s Cross.
Nessie’s niece Diana van Die says Nessie had to leave school at 12 to work.
‘‘Had she had the opportunities we have today, she could have done anything.’’
As a young woman, Nessie lived in New York for five years during prohibition, where she assures us she had a very good time.
Back in Scotland, she married a soldier, Jimmy Hogarth.
They lived in Dover in the 1930s.
Agnes ‘Nessie’ Kluckhenn as a newlywed in Dover, England, in the 1930s.
She remembers being in London as Jewish refugees streamed in, and then being in Glasgow when it was bombed during World War II.
The couple migrated to Melbourne in 1947 and lived in the northern suburb of Coburg — she found the place so desolate (her term was ‘‘awfully dead’’) she wanted to return to Scotland.
But they soon settled in; Jimmy worked for an engineering firm and Nessie found employment at Myer and later owned a card shop in Degraves Street subway.
Nessie married her second husband, Carl Kluckhenn, in 1978, three years after Jimmy died, and she moved into the Mayflower aged care home in when she was 92. Carl died in 2005.
Dr van Die says while Nessie never had children, she was a devoted “Auntie Ness” to her dozens of nieces, nephews and their offspring.
Ms Kluckhann says ‘‘never in 1000 years’’ did she expect to live to 110.
Williamina said, of her sister, “She’s always looked after herself, but she also enjoys herself”.
Japanese cherry blossom in full bloom – in pictures
Japan’s sakura (cherry blossom) season has officially begun, with crowds flocking to parks to photograph the early blooms
Selected by Natasha Rees-Bloor
Admiring the blossoms from a bridge in Tokyo
Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty
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Mayor LaToya Cantrell will say sorry for 1891 killing of 11 Italian Americans after some were acquitted of murdering police chief
Mayor of New Orleans LaToya Cantrell will offer an apology on 12 April over the lynching of 11 Italian Americans. Photograph: Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Essence
The mayor of New Orleans is to apologise to Italian Americans for the historical lynching of 11 Italian immigrants in what is considered the nation’s worst such incident.
“This has been a longstanding wound,” said Michael Santo of the Order Sons and Daughters of Italy. Santo said that when the city was asked earlier this year for an apology, Mayor LaToya Cantrell embraced the idea, appointing Human Relations Commission head Vincenzo Pasquantonio as liaison.
Mayoral spokesman Joseph Caruso said a proclamation would be released on 12 April and will be presented at the city’s American Italian Cultural Center.
The lynching took place in 1891 after a group were acquitted of the murder of a police chief. Correspondence among Italian, US, and state officials showed the lynching “occurred with the connivance of the New Orleans local authorities”, Patricia Fama Stahle wrote in a 2016 book.
The ensuing outcry prompted Italy to close its embassy in the US, followed by a reciprocal US Embassy closing in Italy, said Santo.
The police chief in question, Commissioner David Hennessy, was ambushed on 15 October, 1890, by four men near his home. He died, reportedly blaming Italians.
About 30,000 Italian immigrants lived in New Orleans and hundreds were arrested during the investigation that followed, Stehle wrote. Nineteen were indicted, and nine of them were tried– a trial that ended with six acquittals and jurors unable to agree in three cases.
Anti-Italian prejudice had been growing since the 1860s, when Sicilians began arriving in large numbers, said Dr Joseph V Scelsa, president of the Italian American Museum in New York and sociology professor emeritus at City University of New York. Though many originally came to work on plantations, they quickly organized businesses of their own, such as working on docks or importing fruit and vegetables from South America, he said.
A copy of a 14 March, 1891, newspaper advertisement calling for action after the acquittals in New Orleans.
Photograph: AP
At least three of those tried in New Orleans had been in trouble with the law in Italy and another was a known Mafioso, according to Stahle, but at least five had clean records. Eight of those killed were US citizens, three were Italian citizens.
After the verdict was reached on 13 March, 1891, a “Vigilance Committee” took out ads in morning newspapers calling for a meeting of people “prepared for action”, according to a 1991 article in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.
It said thousands of people gathered around a statue of Henry Clay and heard William S. Parkerson say, “When the law is powerless, rights delegated by the people are relegated back to the people, and they are justified in doing that which the courts have failed to do.”
The mob stormed the jail. Jailers opened cell doors and told the men to run, but nine were chased down and shot. Two others were hanged, according to the article. Of the 11 dead, three had been acquitted, the jury was undecided on three others, and the remaining five had been indicted but not tried, said Charles Marsala, who is working on a documentary about Sicilian immigration to New Orleans.
In 1892, the US government paid $25,000 in reparations to victims’ families.
It “was a horrific act of collective violence inspired by ethnic prejudice, and it has a claim to constituting the largest mass lynching in US history, but it was hardly the largest act of collective violence in US history or even Louisiana history,” Michael J Pfeifer , author of books about lynching and its roots in the United States, said.
“Most lynching incidents were somewhat targeted and rarely involved more than several victims,” he wrote, while massacres and race riots killed far more people at a time.
World Politics
United States
Live Joe Biden defended by ex-defense secretary’s wife over ‘misleading’ photo – live
Stephanie Carter dismisses claims that photo of her with Biden from 2015 represents an example of unwanted touching – follow the latest live
The photo appears to show Joe Biden with his hands on Stephanie Carter’s shoulders. Carter said: ‘As the sole owner of my story, it is high time that I reclaim it.’ Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
As Joe Biden faces scrutiny of his behavior toward women, the wife of former defense secretary Ash Carter dismissed claims that a photo of her with the former vice president was an example of unwanted touching.
In a Medium post released late Sunday, Stephanie Carter addressed a viral photo in which Biden had his hands on her shoulders and appeared to be whispering in her ear during the swearing-in ceremony for her husband in 2015.
“As the sole owner of my story, it is high time that I reclaim it — from strangers, Twitter, the pundits and the late-night hosts,” Carter wrote. “I won’t pretend that this will be the last of that picture, but it will be the last of other people speaking for me.”
Carter said Biden had hugged her because he sensed she was “uncharacteristically nervous” and leaned in to thank her for letting her husband serve in the Obama administration. The then-vice president, she added kept his hands on her shoulders “as a means of offering his support”.
“But a still shot taken from a video — misleadingly extracted from what was a longer moment between close friends — sent out in a snarky tweet — came to be the lasting image of that day,” Carter added.
Carter’s move to correct the record came just days after Lucy Flores, a former Nevada state assemblywoman, penned an essay recounting an encounter with Biden in 2014 that made her uncomfortable. Flores wrote that Biden touched her shoulders, leaned in to smell her hair and kissed the back of her head — conduct she found to be a violation of her personal space.
A spokesperson for Biden said the former vice president did not recall the interaction with Flores. Biden issued a statement of his own on Sunday denying allegations that he knowingly behaved inappropriately.
“In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support, and comfort,” Biden said. “And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention.”
Biden’s tendency to get close to women in public events has long been dismissed as part of the former vice president’s friendly posture. But his behavior has come under renewed focus in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement.
Numerous photos of Biden have been circulated in which the former vice president is seen wrapping his arms around women’s waists or pulling them close and whispering in their ears. Critics have suggested Biden has often failed to respect a woman’s personal space.
In her essay, Carter said Flores had the right to “speak her truth” about how she felt about her interaction with Biden.
“She should be, like all women, believed. But her story is not mine,” Carter wrote. “The Joe Biden in my picture is a close friend helping someone get through a big day, for which I will always be grateful.”
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Lucy Flores says conduct disqualifies former VP for 2020 run
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Democratic candidates express support for accuser
Joe Biden speaks in Dover, Delaware, this month. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Joe Biden, the former US vice-president, has promised to “listen respectfully” to any allegations that he behaved inappropriately towards women.
Biden issued a statement on Sunday as a former state lawmaker, who accuses him of kissing her head without consent, said he had displayed a pattern of behaviour that was disqualifying for a presidential candidate.
The former vice-president, who is expected to enter the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, has for years been known to make physical contact with women at political events, sometimes appearing to make them uncomfortable.
Lucy Flores, a former member of the Nevada state assembly, said in an article for The Cut on Friday Biden approached her from behind at a campaign event in November 2014, placed his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair and slowly planted a kiss on the top of her head.
Flores, who at the time was 35 and a candidate for lieutenant governor, described Biden’s actions as “blatantly inappropriate and unnerving”.
In an interview on Sunday, Flores said “it wasn’t the only incident” and that Biden had behaved questionably with other women.
“There has been documentation both in photos and in videos, in stories that were written,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.
“For me its disqualifying,” Flores said.
Biden said in a statement on Sunday he had given “countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort” in his decades on the campaign trail.
“And not once – never – did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention,” Biden said. He conceded that he “may be surprised” by recollections of others involved that differ from his own.
“But we have arrived at an important time when women feel they can and should relate their experiences, and men should pay attention. And I will,” Biden said.
Flores noted in her interview that her complaint about Biden had not been about his intentions and said this was a secondary concern.
“It should be about the women on the receiving end of that behaviour,” she said.
The controversy has alarmed Democrats who fear that Biden, who has led several early opinion polls, could be dragged down by decades of political and cultural baggage.
Biden has come under sustained criticism for his handling of the Senate judiciary committee’s confirmation hearings for supreme court justice Clarence Thomas in 1991. Biden, then committee chairman, has apologised to Anita Hill, who testified that Thomas sexually harassed her. Biden declined to allow other witnesses with accounts supporting Hill’s to testify.
Other candidates for the 2020 nomination offered support for Flores.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told an interviewer in Iowa on Saturday: “I believe Lucy Flores, and Joe Biden needs to give an answer.” Asked if Biden should abandon plans to run for president, Warren said: “That’s for Joe Biden to decide.”
In an interview on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she had “no reason not to believe” Flores. Klobuchar said Biden had addressed the allegation and “will continue to address it” if he enters the race.
Julián Castro, the former US housing secretary and mayor of San Antonio, Texas, said on Saturday in Iowa: “I believe Lucy Flores.” He added: “We need to live in a nation where people can hear her truth.”
Asked if the incident should disqualify Biden, Castro said: “He’s going to decide whether he’s going to run or not, and then the American people, if he does, will decide whether they support him or not.”
The organiser of the 2014 rally in Nevada, Henry Munoz, defended Biden in a statement on Saturday, in which he said he and others involved in the event “do not believe that circumstances support allegations that such an event took place”.
But Munoz appeared to base this statement on a contention that Flores and Biden had not been alone at any point during the event. Flores never suggested they had been, telling CNN the actor Eva Longoria was present.
Kellyanne Conway, a White House adviser to Donald Trump, said Biden had a “big problem”. Conway told Fox News Sunday: “He calls it affection and handshakes. His party calls it completely inappropriate.”
Trump has been accused of sexual assault or harassment by more than a dozen women. A recording of Trump boasting that he grabbed women by their genitals was made public in the weeks before his 2016 election victory.
