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02 Feb

News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective

The Foreign Press

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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US politics >>

Trump tweets anger at ‘dumb’ Australia refugee deal – video

Source: AAP

While Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull remained tight-lipped on the phone call between himself and the US president, Donald Trump fired off a scathing tweet regarding the US agreement to resettle refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres, calling it a ‘dumb deal’ and describing the refugees as illegal immigrants.

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Trump’s nomination of Gorsuch brings protesters to supreme court – video

Source: AP/Reuters

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the supreme court provokes a mixture of praise and condemnation in Washington on Tuesday. Standing outside the supreme court, civil liberties campaigners are joined by hundreds of protesters to voice their dissent

Appease or oppose? How the world’s nations are reacting to Trump>>

Rex Tillerson needs to win battles at home before the wars abroad>>

‘Bad hombres’: reports claim Trump spoke of sending troops to Mexico>>

Steve Bannon: ‘We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt’>>

Trump travel ban should end as soon as possible, says UN head – video>>

Donald Trump ‘taking steps to abolish Environmental Protection Agency’>>

NRA cheers nomination of Neil Gorsuch, seen as gun rights defender>>

Trump’s nomination of Gorsuch brings protesters to supreme court – video>>

‘So far from God, so close to the US’: Mexico’s troubled past with its neighbour

Donald Trump’s reported threat to sort out ‘bad hombres’ revives a venerable tradition of gringo intimidation and humiliation that dates back generations

An ‘Alebrije’, a traditional Mexican figure, with the face of Donald Trump burns in front of the US embassy building in Mexico City during a protest.

An ‘Alebrije’, a traditional Mexican figure, with the face of Donald Trump burns in front of the US embassy in Mexico City during a protest. Photograph: Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images

in Los Angeles

Donald Trump’s reported threat to use US troops to sort out “bad hombres” in Mexico revives a venerable tradition of gringo intimidation and humiliation which Mexico thought had passed into history.

The president used the language of a cowboy movie – arguably more Blazing Saddles than The Magnificent Seven – but to Mexicans the implication was all too real: the superpower bully was back.

How else to interpret a conversation between Trump and President Enrique Peña Nieto which, if confirmed, will go down in diplomatic annals.

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,” said the US leader, according to a transcript leaked to the Associated Press on Wednesday. “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

The menace and disrespect shocked Mexico. It was like entering a time machine and reading headlines about US raids to capture Pancho Villa.

“Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the US.” All Mexicans know the quote. A rueful reflection on proximity to a powerful, expansionist neighbour attributed to the wily dictator Porfirio Diaz.

The troubled history began soon after Mexico wrested independence from Spain in 1821. The young, rickety republic lacked resources and people to cultivate and protect its northern lands from comanches and US expansionism.

So in a blunder regretted to this day it invited US settlers to farm the land on condition they drop slavery, become Catholics and swear fealty to Mexico. The settlers rebelled and despite losing the Alamo-won independence, creating the Republic of Texas in 1836.

A decade later President Polk sensed a chance to extend the US south and to the Pacific. The 1846-48 invasion and occupation ravaged Mexico and forced it to cede modern-day California, Nevada, Utah as well as a lot of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, plus a bit of Wyoming.

Mexican general Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa on horseback, circa 1911.

Mexican general Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa on horseback, circa 1911. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Mexico still reveres “los niños héroes” – the child heroes – who supposedly fought the invaders and then leaped from a fortress to martyrdom, clutching a flag, rather than surrender. The occupying marines’ green uniform reputedly prompted cries of “green go”, and the term gringo.

US forces returned in 1914, during revolutionary tumult, to occupy Veracruz. And again in 1916 to hunt Pancho Villa, a renegade warlord who had killed US citizens on both sides of the border. Despite a force of 5,000 soldiers with aircraft and trucks the Americans failed to catch him.

The US’s entry into the second world war warmed relations with Mexico. It needed Mexican metals and labour. The bracero programme allowed in millions to work in fields and factories. The tide turned in 1954 when President Eisenhower ordered Operation Wetback, a controversial policy which rounded up and deported an estimated 3.8m Mexicans.

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Over 70 arrested at Standing Rock as Dakota Access aims to finish pipeline

North Dakota police arrested 76 people one day after federal officials suggested that the government could soon approve the final stage of pipeline construction

Cleanup begins at Standing Rock.

The cleanup begins at Standing Rock. Photograph: Associated Press

in San Francisco

North Dakota police have arrested 76 people at Standing Rock one day after federal officials suggested that the government could soon approve the final stage of construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

The arrests occurred after a group of activists, who call themselves water protectors, established a new camp near the pipeline construction.

Rob Keller, spokesman for the Morton County sheriff’s office, told the Guardian on Wednesday night that it was too soon to say what charges were being filed. In a statement, he claimed that a “rogue group of protesters” had trespassed on private property.

“A lot of water protectors really felt that we needed to make some sort of stand as far as treaty rights,” said Linda Black Elk, a member of the Catawba Nation. “We basically started to see police mobilizing from all directions. Someone came along and told us we had about 15 minutes before the camp would get raided.”

Black Elk, who works with the Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council, said there were initially hundreds of activists at the new camp but that those who did not want to be taken into custody ultimately decided to retreat.

“There were a lot of people who felt like the prospect of treaty rights was something worth getting arrested over,” she said.

The tense confrontation comes one week after Donald Trump issued an order demanding the revival of the Dakota Access pipeline and the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, reversing Barack Obama’s actions.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has long argued that the $3.8bn pipeline threatens its water supply and sacred lands, has vowed to fight the order. Activists are seeking to assert indigenous treaty rights, which they say the government and the oil company have violated.

On Tuesday night, Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota announced that the acting secretary of the army has directed the army corps of engineers to proceed with an easement necessary to finish the pipeline. His spokesman said the easement, which Obama had denied in December, “isn’t quite issued yet, but they plan to approve it” within days.

MG Malcolm Frost, US army chief of public affairs, said in a statement on Wednesday that the government was acting on Trump’s order “to expeditiously review requests for approvals to construct and operate the Dakota Access pipeline in compliance with the law”.

Some indigenous and environmental activists have been camped out by the pipeline project for months, remaining in place through the cold North Dakota winter. A group mobilized on Wednesday to form the new camp, which quickly attracted attention of local law enforcement.

The Morton County sheriff’s office said it took action to “enforce the law and evict” the “illegal camp” after people refused to leave. At around 3.30pm, police began making arrests.

“Our law enforcement officers conducted themselves in a safe and responsible manner,” Morton County’s sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier, said in a statement.

The sheriff’s office – which has now made nearly 700 arrests since the Standing Rock demonstrations escalated last summer – said the camp was cleared by 4pm. The activists were taken to five different jails across North Dakota.

Two medics were arrested, according to Noah Morris, a medic who has been at Standing Rock for months.

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Eight-year-old American girl ‘killed in Yemen raid approved by Trump’

Anwar al-Awlaki’s daughter, Nawar, may have been fatally shot in intelligence operation on al-Qaida that left at least 14 people, including a US commando, dead

nawar anwar al awlaki

Nawar al-Awlaki was the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida propagandist and American citizen who was killed in a 2011 US drone strike in Yemen. Photograph: Twitter

, and

President Donald Trump personally approved a US commando raid in Yemen that left one elite serviceman dead and may have killed an eight-year-old American girl, the US military has told the Guardian.

At least 14 people died in Sunday’s raid by the elite Joint Special Operations Command, which was the subject of a preliminary inquiry to determine if allegations of civilian deaths were sufficiently credible to merit a full investigation.

On Wednesday night, US central command said in a statement that the team conducting the inquiry had already confirmed that civilians were “likely killed” in the raid and that “casualties may include children”. It is continuing to look into whether there “were any still-undetected civilian casualties”.

Col John Thomas, a spokesman for central command, said in the statement: “Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula has a horrifying history of hiding women and children within militant operating areas and terrorist camps, and continuously shows a callous disregard for innocent lives.

That’s what makes cases like these so especially tragic.”

The operation was launched to gather intelligence on suspected operations by al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula (AQAP), according to Thomas. Planning for the raid “started months before”, under Barack Obama’s administration, but was “not previously approved”, he said.

Thomas said he did not know why the prior administration did not authorize the operation, but said the Obama administration had effectively exercised a “pocket veto” over it.

A former official said the operation had been reviewed several times, but the underlying intelligence was not judged strong enough to justify the risks, and the case was left to the incoming Trump administration to make its own judgment.

An eight-year-old girl, Nawar al-Awlaki, was killed in the raid, according to her family. Nawar, also known as Nora, is the daughter of the al-Qaida propagandist and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a September 2011 US drone strike in Yemen. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman was killed in a second drone strike soon afterwards.

On the campaign trail, Trump endorsed killing relatives of terrorist suspects, which is a war crime. “The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” he told Fox News in December 2015.

On Tuesday, Thomas strongly denied that US military forces knew the girl was in the compound before launching the operation, or that any of what Central Command said were an “estimated” 14 people ultimately killed in the raid were civilians.

“If we did, we would know now, already, there were civilian casualties,” he said.

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François Fillon fights to save presidential bid amid fake jobs scandal

French rightwing candidate was favourite to win but latest poll shows him being eliminated in first round as backlash grows

François Fillon

MPs in François Fillon’s party are questioning whether the former French PM has become an electoral liability. Photograph: Reuters

in Paris

François Fillon is battling to save his rightwing bid for the French presidency as party colleagues increased pressure on him to stand aside after fresh allegations he paid his family large amounts of taxpayers’ money.

Fillon was considered a favourite to win the two-round presidential election in April and May. But for the first time since allegations broke last week that he had paid his wife for an allegedly fake job as a parliamentary assistant, a poll showed him sinking and being eliminated in the first round, lagging behind the far-right Marine Le Pen and overtaken by the centrist, maverick independent Emmanuel Macron.

MPs in Fillon’s party, Les Républicains, began to question whether he was becoming an electoral liability, after having built his campaign on a carefully crafted image as a sleaze-free honourable country gentleman who wanted to slash public spending and cut public jobs.

One poll showed 76% of French voters were not convinced by his response to the scandal.

Fillon has denied the allegations and insists he will not pull out of the presidential race unless he is charged with an offence. He is alleged by the investigative paper Le Canard Enchaîné to have paid his British wife Penelope about €830,000 (£700,000) as a parliamentary assistant for more than a decade – a higher amount than previously thought.

It is legal for French MPs to hire family members, as long as the person is genuinely employed. But French prosecutors have launched a preliminary investigation into the possible “misuse of public funds” to determine whether or not Penelope Fillon had in fact done any work for her husband.

The Canard Enchaîné also revealed on Wednesday that Fillon had paid his two children €84,000 between them as assistants when he was a senator.

Fillon urged MPs at a closed meeting on Wednesday to stick by him at least for another two weeks as the investigation continued. He vowed he would remain as candidate and fight “to the end”.

But he continued to argue he was the victim of a plot, accusing the current Socialist government of staging an “institutional coup d’état” against him.

An aide to the Socialist president François Hollande dismissed the allegation, saying: “The only power is that of the justice system.”

Officially, Les Républicains party is not yet looking for a possible replacement if Fillon is forced to drop out, but the nervousness behind the scenes was palpable.

MPs are worried voters in their constituencies will turn away from the party not just in the presidential race but in the crucial parliamentary election that follows in June.

Read Full Article>>

Is that me? Kestrel checks out reflection in traffic camera – video

Source: YouTube/ Highways England

A kestrel takes a shine to a Highways England CCTV camera at Junction 11a of the M5 in Gloucestershire. First spotted by traffic officers in October 2016, the kestrel is seen on separate occasions checking its reflection in the camera, struggling against high winds and being assailed by a magpie and a raven

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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.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2017 at 10:35 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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