Submit Unique Articles : November 2020

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday he favours a permanent division of Cyprus into two states. The comments were made during a visit to the breakaway Turkish-held north of the island, decried as a “provocation” by the internationally-recognised Greek-speaking south. It marks a further setback to hopes for an eventual reunification of the Mediterranean island which is split between EU member the Republic of Cyprus, which controls the island's southern two thirds, and the north occupied by Turkey since 1974. “There are two peoples and two separate states in Cyprus,” said Mr Erdogan. “There must be talks for a solution on the basis of two separate states.” During his visit, Turkish jets left vapour trails in the sky in the shape of the star and crescent of the Turkish flag - mirroring a huge flag painted decades ago on a rocky mountainside in the north. Mr Erdogan's visit to the Turkish-held statelet recognised only by Ankara comes amid heightened tensions on the island and in the Eastern Mediterranean and was condemned as a “provocation without precedent” by the Republic of Cyprus.

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Joe Biden administration: president-elect assembles a diverse cabinet

Susan Rice is being considered for secretary of state and Michele Flournoy is reportedly top choice for defence secretaryJoe Biden is piecing together what he has promised to be a diverse cabinet, with Michele Flournoy reportedly top choice for US defence secretary and Susan Rice considered a frontrunner for secretary of state.Flournoy was previously a senior defense adviser in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s administrations and is considered a political moderate. Since leaving government she has been involved in various consultancy roles around military contracts.The appointment, if confirmed by the US Senate, would end a tumultuous period under Donald Trump, who has had five male defense secretaries during his presidency. The latest, Mark Esper, was unceremoniously fired on Monday for, among other issues, disagreeing with the president over the use of force against civilian protesters.If she did become America’s first female defense secretary, Flournoy would potentially be faced with the task of deploying the military to distribute a Covid-19 vaccine. It’s likely she would seek to rebuild the US’s international reputation, telling a conference in March that “it’s going to take a lot of work over a number of years to recover that trust and that standing”.Biden, who has vowed “to be a president for all Americans”, will face a challenge getting his cabinet picks past a Republican-held Senate if, as expected, the party retains control of the chamber following two special elections in Georgia in January. If he does offer up political moderates and even Republicans for roles, he risks stirring anger among the progressive Democratic wing.Rice, who served as national security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration, is seen as a safe pick for the state department, although some Republicans may object to her over what they consider misleading statements over the 2012 attack on a US consulate in Libya which killed four Americans.Questioned while on a bicycle ride on Saturday, Biden confirmed that he was getting closer to picking a cabinet that will face steep challenges once the president-elect enters the White House on 20 January.A largely uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 is tearing across the country, with a record number of daily cases recorded on Friday. A Biden administration will have to somehow tame the pandemic while crafting a response to the economic fallout that has cost millions of jobs, probably in the face of Republican opposition in the Senate.Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who became an effective campaigner for Biden after he dropped his own presidential ambitions, could be in line for a job, perhaps as ambassador to the United Nations.Lael Brainard, a governor at the Federal Reserve and another political moderate, is favorite to be named as treasury secretary, while Doug Jones, recently defeated as Senator from Alabama, or Sally Yates, acting attorney general under Trump before being fired, could be put forward as attorney general.

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Philadelphia city council apologizes for approving the police bombing of one of its Black neighborhood's killing 11 people, including 5 children

On May 13, 1985, police dropped an explosive device on the compound of the Black militant group, MOVE, which sparked a fire that burned down 61 homes.

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America’s largest militia says it will refuse to recognise Biden as president and ‘resist’ his administration

‘Anything he signs into law we won’t recognise as legitimate,’ Oath Keepers founder says

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A Seattle hiker was brought 'back from the dead' by doctors after his heart stopped for 45 minutes

Michael Knapinski was airlifted to a Seattle hospital after he was found unconscious in a freezing river basin on the edge of Mount Ranier.

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Trump says the battleground states saw election fraud. Republican officials running those states disagree.

Republican officials in swings states have responded by assuring voters there have been no signs of fraud.

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Black Lives Matter Is Challenging Sweden’s Myth of a Post-Racial Paradise

It’s been four months since anti-racism protests filled Europe’s boulevards and parks, toppling statues of enslavers and colonizers like Edward Colston and Belgium’s King Leopold II, and prompting larger conversations around anti-Blackness on the continent. But even as the swells of crowds with raised fists have left the streets, the cause of the protests remains. Black lives still hang in the balance, and now activists are moving from marches to ideological battles in classrooms, boardrooms, and online spaces.In Ireland, that means shifting focus onto the need to dismantle Direct Provision. France has been grappling with not only police brutality towards Black and Muslim people but attitudes toward minorities from France's former colonies in Africa and ideas on colonialism in general, including questions of returning stolen artifacts to former colonies. And in Sweden— which has traditionally seen itself as a post-racial paradise—the first step is getting the country to admit to its own racist structures, past and present.Since protests spread across Sweden in early June, ugly truths about its racialized history have been seeping into public spaces. Despite the country being considered one of the least racist in the world, police biases and Afrophobia are rife, and Sweden’s past involvement with the cross-Atlantic slave trade and racist pseudo-science is ignored or erased.Protests in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö this summer were met with police backlash for breaking the COVID-19 limit of 50 people to a public gathering. More than 2,000 people took part in the Gothenburg protest, raising their voices against the deep-rooted racism that underpins much of Swedish society. Nontokozo Tshabalala and Aron Zahran, activists and mobilizers from the BLM protest in Gothenburg, say the first step is to get Swedish society to acknowledge that there is a racism problem in the country, which they say the white population loves to ignore.“They pretend that the issue isn’t there. Sweden only ended slavery after pressure from the U.K. and international players, and even then King Gustav III said that no Swede has ever had any part in the slave trade, which is a blatant lie and feeds Swedish denialism,” says Zahran.Sweden, long considered a socialist utopia and a bastion of human rights by the global left, is not post-racial—nor does it have a compassionate police force. Historically, the country participated in the processes that have come to define racist systems all over the world: Sweden’s Caribbean colony of Saint Barthélemy (now the French overseas territory of St. Barth) was active with slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. Scandinavian involvement in the slave trade is often overlooked but Sweden was one of the last countries in Europe to abolish slavery, a full 14 years after the U.K. The country’s colonization of the Caribbean island is still taught in its schools as a practice in benevolent leadership.The country was also a cradle for the pseudoscience of race biology, with Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus being the first scientist to divide people into biologically-defined races—definitions that were meant to justify the discrimination of people of color around the world for centuries. Scientific racism played a large role in the definitions cited by South Africa’s former government to set up the system of apartheid, which has since been deemed a crime against humanity. Linnaeus, known in Sweden as the father of taxonomy, is celebrated all over the country but there have been calls to remove his statues, calling him the father of racial division. However, many Swedes see this as an affront to the country’s heritage and protected the statue in Stockholm from possible vandalism earlier this year.The Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala continued to take a leading role in research dealing with racial eugenics well into the 1930s and facilitated the implementation of forced sterilization laws, which pertained to certain groups of people with “unwanted” genes, such as people of mixed race, the Swedish Romani population, and the indigenous Sámi people. The aim was to prevent “ethnically inferior inhabitants” from having children. This research paved the way for the Nazi party’s 1933 Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases, eradicating those seen as lacking “racial hygiene.” These laws were only completely abolished in the 1970s, despite the practice of sterilization being universally declared criminal and barbaric after the 1946 Nuremberg Trials.Even so, modern-day Sweden likes to brush over these issues of the past, in a poignant example of the problem of nationalism in Europe today: racism is not deemed a mainstream problem. It is instead seen as an expression of extremism, where there are only good people or Nazis. The right-wing Swedish Democrat party, which was founded by a Nazi sympathizer and which now holds 13 percent of the country’s parliament, is treated as a national anomaly rather than a growing threat. Scandanavia’s neo-Nazi party, the Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordfront), is still painted as a national joke, even after 2019 attacks on Jewish cemeteries across Scandinavia on the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht.Activists Zahran and Tshabalala say the largest hurdle for BLM in Sweden right now is educating white Swedes on their own history. This is the country where former prime minister Olof Palme said in 1965: “Democracy is firmly rooted in this country. We respect the fundamental freedoms and rights. Murky racial theories have never found a foothold here. We like to see ourselves as open-minded and tolerant.” It’s a popular sentiment, one that pretends racist ideology was never coddled in the heart of Swedish society in the arms of Linneaus and his ilk.Despite Sweden’s self-professed tolerance, there still seems to be a pattern of discrimination and exclusion in Swedish society, as well as Europe more broadly: the “us” vs. the foreign “them.” While national minorities such as the Sámi, Roma, and Jewish people have a long history of being excluded from the Swedish nation, people of color are most evidently discriminated against in every major arena of society, such as the housing and job markets. “If your name is not Swedish, you are less likely to get an interview,” says Zahran. “Black Swedes are paid less, need a higher level of education to enter certain positions, and are less likely to be accepted into Swedish society.” Tshabalala adds that while all of this is true, Swedes maintain a self-righteous attitude that the country doesn’t see color. Nevertheless, urban areas are spatially segregated along racial lines, with people of color concentrated to low-income housing projects. Many of these areas are considered “problem areas” by the police, and the media (and public) quickly latched onto the term “no-go zone,” implying that those areas are lawless, with little attempt made to cover up the reason why they’re known as such.Amid Spreading George Floyd Protests in Europe, a Question: Do Black Lives Matter Less in France? Although few modern Swedes are descendants of enslaved people, over one-quarter of all Swedish citizens have heritage from outside Scandinavia, including approximately 350,000 Afro-Swedes, most of whom arrived in the past 50 years. “If you are a first-generation Swede, with your parents having been born elsewhere, it’s the same as having Finnish or Norwegian parents—but they are seen as citizens, whereas Black Swedes are always, no matter whether we are born here, seen as foreign,” says Zahran. For Black Swedes, structural racism is apparent from racially-motivated hate crimes, police and security profiling, to discrimination in everyday society. “Oftentimes,” Zahran says, “security forces quietly belong to growing neo-Nazi groups.” The fact that the Danish neo-Nazi politician Rasmus Paludan’s followers felt comfortable enough to enter the country to burn copies of the Qu’ran near one of the city’s mosques in August shows the complacency toward racism in Sweden. “This is what we are dealing with,” says Tshabalala.Both Tshabalala and Zahran point out that racism extends to the Swedish criminal justice system. “Whiteness is so embedded in Swedish culture and even the human rights realm, that it’s seen as okay when a Black woman’s rape case is thrown out of court because there was lack of evidence,” says Tshabalala, citing the attitudes towards immigration and sexual violence, a correlation often used by the right-wing Swedish Democrats in the argument against immigration and giving asylum to refugees. There have also been many cases of violence with racist overtones, such as Stockholm security guards abusing a 12-year-old boy of Somali descent in the Kista Galleria shopping center and a pregnant Afro-Swedish woman at Hötorget’s underground station.The left in the U.S., such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, often speak of the “Nordic model” as an example of democratic socialism, but the reality is that the model is slowly moving closer to that of America, especially in its income inequality, which has increased faster than any other country in the world. Increasingly neo-liberal policies have affected working-class Swedes and they have disproportionately impacted racial minorities in larger cities like Stockholm and Malmö, where it is now common to see primarily Black neighborhoods emerging that are low-income and underdeveloped, much like in the U.S.Swedish police may not carry guns, but that doesn’t stop police brutality, and Tshabalala says the target demographic in racial profiling is Black Swedes. In a recent report by criminologist Leandro Schclarek Mulinari, minorities tell of how they are harassed by police and security guards with violent and intimidating methods, all based on their appearance. Mulinari also details over-policing in Black areas, with police disproportionately targeting Black and minority Swedes through “selective policing,” despite higher self-reported drug usage in majority-white neighborhoods. “Yet Swedish people brush these facts aside like it’s not a problem,” says Zahran. “The first goal is to educate and get people to admit this thing exists.”The BLM movement in Sweden is not just asking to reform the police, but also for a redistribution of resources, to invest in communities overlooked by white politicians and a society run by and for white people. Eradicating ignorance is the only way to get there. “Advertising and creative industries need to change perceptions about Black people. We need Black faces, Black voices, and Black representation,” says Tshabalala. “And we need to keep BLM on the agenda. We can’t wait for the next person to become a statistic. We don’t want someone to die to have to move the fight forward.”Zahran says the fact that Sweden has an equality minister who is getting involved with the movement is a positive step forward, but there’s still such a long way to go. While corporations are falling over themselves to be “BLM friendly,” the movement is still busy with the groundwork in education and awareness. “We need to target industry and the consumer culture because Sweden is so consumer-driven. Whiteness in these spaces keeps the status quo,” says Tshabalala. “We also need to get more representation in NGO and human rights spaces, because we can’t have white people heading up foundations aimed at Black empowerment.”Still, BLM has not lost momentum in Sweden, according to the activists. They both agree that the key is to keep that energy going and not get distracted from the goal even though the protests are over. Where BLM Sweden is at right now is trying to change public perceptions of Black people and empower others to do the same. “BLM gave Black people and allies the impetus to effect change,” says Zahran, “and that’s where we are: pushing forward, taking each issue step by step.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Iran mocks Al-Qaeda No. 2 killed in Tehran report

Iran on Saturday dismissed a US newspaper report that Al-Qaeda's second-in-command was killed in Tehran by Israeli agents as "made-up information" and denied the presence of any of the Sunni jihadist group's members in the Islamic republic.

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Cuomo threatens Trump with legal action over vaccine distribution plan

NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo repeated his threat to sue the Trump administration as he invoked Martin Luther King, Jr. during Sunday remarks about the COVID outbreak at historic Riverside Church in Manhattan. "The Rev. Dr. King, who spoke in this magnificent church, said of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane because it often results in ...

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Letters to the Editor: The message from Prop. 15's failure? Leave Prop. 13 alone

The business community wants tax loopholes that violate the intent of Prop. 13 to be closed, but not in the way Prop. 15 would have done.

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Costco will deliver a 12-month long private flight membership to your email — if you pay $17,500

Costco's digital gift card offerings feature Build-A-Bear Workshop tickets, Xbox memberships — and the $17,499.99 "private aviation membership."

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Moldova election could see shift away from Moscow and first female president taking power

Moldovans on Sunday voted in a presidential election that will determine whether the ex-Soviet nation remains allied with Russia or seeks closer ties with the European Union. Exit polls put centre-right, pro-EU candidate Maia Sandu in the lead after she won a surprise victory in the first round vote two weeks ago, forcing Kremlin-backed incumbent Igor Dodon into a run-off. Moscow has been vocal in its support for Mr Dodon, with Russian President Vladimir Putin making a personal appeal to Moldovans last month to return the leader for a second term. The Russian intelligence service has meanwhile accused the US of preparing for a “revolution” in Moldova and backing protests in the event of a Mr Dodon win. The vote comes amid unrest in what Russia traditionally considers its field of influence, with mass demonstrations in Belarus against the Kremlin-allied dictator Alexander Lukashenko, and popular protests bringing down the leadership of Kyrgyzstan. But analysts say the economy and corruption are more likely to influence Moldovan voters’ decisions than geopolitical concerns. Moldova, already one of the poorest countries in Europe, has seen its economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic, following a number of political crises and corruption scandals. Reports of voter fraud have tainted previous elections in the country of 3.5 million, wedged between Romania and Ukraine, and drawn tens of thousands out onto the streets to protest. Ms Sandu, an ex-prime minister who would be Moldova’s first female president, has raised the spectre of fraud again in this election. A former economist for the World Bank, Ms Sandu wants the country to join the European Union and has promised to defend Moldova’s interests against Russia. She is popular among the many Moldovans who have left the country to work abroad, whose support gave her the edge over Mr Dodon in the first round of voting. Mr Dodon and his rival have traded insults throughout the campaign, with the president accusing Ms Sandu of being “hysterical”, and the challenger in turn calling him a “great thief”. They ran against each other in 2016, with Mr Dodon winning in a second round.

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Ex-Obama official suggests Biden should pack as much as he can into executive orders

Former President Barack Obama's chiefs of staff want President-elect Joe Biden to embrace his executive authority once he's in office, NPR reports.Denis McDonough who served in the role during Obama's second term told NPR that President Trump "has demonstrated ... an enormous amount of leeway for the president to institute executive action on things like immigration and energy and climate policy" and "there's no reason" the president-elect "should not use the authority that's available to him."Meanwhile, Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, argued Biden, despite his fondness for working across the aisle in Congress, should fit as much of his agenda as he can into his executive orders because "the fewer things you have to clog up the legislative pipeline with allows you to concentrate your political capital in that legislative front."Should Biden heed this advice, which seems likely at least when it comes to certain issues, it would dash the already tenuous hopes of those who want the president-elect to initiate a scaling back of the office. Read more at NPR.More stories from theweek.com 7 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's refusal to concede Trump is reportedly 'very aware' he lost the election but is putting up a fight as 'theater' Texas senator suggests it's too soon to declare Biden the winner because Puerto Rico is still counting votes

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Al-Qaida's No. 2, Accused in U.S. Embassy Attacks, Is Secretly Killed in Iran

WASHINGTON -- Al-Qaida's second-highest leader, accused of being one of the masterminds of the deadly 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, was killed in Iran three months ago, intelligence officials have confirmed.Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down on the streets of Tehran by two assassins on a motorcycle on Aug. 7, the anniversary of the embassy attacks. He was killed along with his daughter, Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden's son Hamza bin Laden.The attack was carried out by Israeli operatives at the behest of the United States, according to four of the officials. It is unclear what role if any was played by the United States, which had been tracking the movements of al-Masri and other Qaida operatives in Iran for years.Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesThe killing occurred in such a netherworld of geopolitical intrigue and counterterrorism spycraft that al-Masri's death had been rumored but never confirmed until now. For reasons that are still obscure, al-Qaida has not announced the death of one of its top leaders, Iranian officials covered it up, and no country has publicly claimed responsibility for it.Al-Masri, who was about 58, was one of al-Qaida's founding leaders and was thought to be first in line to lead the organization after its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.Long featured on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list, he had been indicted in the United States for crimes related to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded hundreds. The FBI offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture, and as of Friday, his picture was still on the Most Wanted list.That he had been living in Iran was surprising, given that Iran and al-Qaida are bitter enemies. Iran, a Shiite Muslim theocracy, and al-Qaida, a Sunni Muslim jihadi group, have fought each other on the battlefields of Iraq and other places.American intelligence officials say that al-Masri had been in Iran's "custody" since 2003, but that he had been living freely in the Pasdaran district of Tehran, an upscale suburb, since at least 2015.Around 9 on a warm summer night, he was driving his white Renault L90 sedan with his daughter near his home when two gunmen on a motorcycle drew up beside him. Five shots were fired from a pistol fitted with a silencer. Four bullets entered the car through the driver's side and a fifth hit a nearby car.As news of the shooting broke, Iran's official news media identified the victims as Habib Daoud, a Lebanese history professor, and his 27-year-old daughter Maryam. The Lebanese news channel MTV and social media accounts affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard reported that Daoud was a member of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant organization in Lebanon.It seemed plausible.The killing came amid a summer of frequent explosions in Iran, mounting tensions with the United States, days after an enormous explosion in the port of Beirut and a week before the U.N. Security Council was to consider extending an arms embargo against Iran. There was speculation that the killing may have been a Western provocation intended to elicit a violent Iranian reaction in advance of the Security Council vote.And the targeted killing by two gunmen on a motorcycle fit the modus operandi of previous Israeli assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. That Israel would kill an official of Hezbollah, which is committed to fighting Israel, also seemed to make sense, except for the fact that Israel had been consciously avoiding killing Hezbollah operatives so as not to provoke a war.In fact, there was no Habib Daoud.Several Lebanese with close ties to Iran said they had not heard of him or his killing. A search of Lebanese news media found no reports of a Lebanese history professor killed in Iran last summer. And an education researcher with access to lists of all history professors in the country said there was no record of a Habib Daoud.One of the intelligence officials said that Habib Daoud was an alias Iranian officials gave al-Masri and the history teaching job was a cover story. In October, the former leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Nabil Naeem, who called al-Masri a longtime friend, told the Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya the same thing.Iran may have had good reason for wanting to hide the fact that it was harboring an avowed enemy, but it was less clear why Iranian officials would have taken in the Qaida leader to begin with.Some terrorism experts suggested that keeping Qaida officials in Tehran might provide some insurance that the group would not conduct operations inside Iran. American counterterrorism officials believe Iran may have allowed them to stay to run operations against the United States, a common adversary.It would not be the first time that Iran had joined forces with Sunni militants, having supported Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Taliban."Iran uses sectarianism as a cudgel when it suits the regime, but is also willing to overlook the Sunni-Shia divide when it suits Iranian interests," said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Center.Iran has consistently denied housing the Qaida officials. In 2018, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said that because of Iran's long, porous border with Afghanistan, some Qaida members had entered Iran, but they had been detained and returned to their home countries.However, Western intelligence officials said the Qaida leaders had been kept under house arrest by the Iranian government, which then made at least two deals with al-Qaida to free some of them in 2011 and 2015.Although al-Qaida has been overshadowed in recent years by the rise of the Islamic State, it remains resilient and has active affiliates around the globe, a U.N. counterterrorism report issued in July concluded.Iranian officials did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Spokesmen for the Israeli prime minister's office and the Trump administration's National Security Council declined to comment.Al-Masri was a longtime member of al-Qaida's highly secretive management council, along with Saif al-Adl, who was also held in Iran at one point. The pair, along with Hamza bin Laden, who was being groomed to take over the organization, were part of a group of senior Qaida leaders who sought refuge in Iran after the 9/11 attacks on the United States forced them to flee Afghanistan.According to a highly classified document produced by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center in 2008, al-Masri was the "most experienced and capable operational planner not in U.S. or allied custody." The document described him as the "former chief of training" who "worked closely" with al-Adl.In Iran, al-Masri mentored Hamza bin Laden, according to terrorism experts. Hamza bin Laden later married al-Masri's daughter, Miriam."The marriage of Hamza bin Ladin was not the only dynastic connection Abu Muhammad forged in captivity," Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and Qaida expert, wrote in a 2019 article for West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.Another of al-Masri's daughters married Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, no relation, a member of the management council. He was allowed to leave Iran in 2015 and was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Syria in 2017. At the time, he was the second-ranking Qaida official after Zawahri.Hamza and other members of the bin Laden family were freed by Iran in 2011 in exchange for an Iranian diplomat abducted in Pakistan. Last year, the White House said Hamza bin Laden had been killed in a counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.Abu Muhammad al-Masri was born in Al Rarbiya district of northern Egypt in 1963. In his youth, according to affidavits filed in lawsuits in the United States, he was a professional soccer player in Egypt's top league. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, he joined the jihadi movement that was coalescing to assist the Afghan forces.After the Soviets withdrew 10 years later, Egypt refused to allow al-Masri to return. He remained in Afghanistan where he eventually joined bin Laden in the group that was later to become the founding nucleus of al-Qaida. He was listed by the group as the seventh of its 170 founders.In the early 1990s, he traveled with bin Laden to Khartoum, Sudan, where he began forming military cells. He also went to Somalia to help the militia loyal to Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. There he trained Somali guerrillas in the use of shoulder-borne rocket launchers against helicopters, training they used in the 1993 battle of Mogadishu to shoot down a pair of U.S. helicopters in what is now known as the Black Hawk Down attack."When al-Qaida began to carry out terrorist activities in the late 1990s, al-Masri was one of the three of bin Laden's closest associates, serving as head of the organization's operations section," said Yoram Schweitzer, head of the Terrorism Project of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. "He brought with him know-how and determination and since then was involved in a large part of the organization's operations, with an emphasis on Africa."Shortly after the Mogadishu battle, bin Laden put al-Masri in charge of planning operations against U.S. targets in Africa. Plotting a dramatic, ambitious operation that, like the 9/11 attacks, would command international attention, they decided to attack two relatively well-defended targets in separate countries simultaneously.Shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 7, 1998, two trucks packed with explosives pulled up in front of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The blasts incinerated people nearby, blew walls off buildings and shattered glass for blocks around.In 2000, al-Masri became one of the nine members of al-Qaida's governing council and headed the organization's military training.He also continued to oversee Africa operations, according to a former Israeli Intelligence official, and ordered the attack in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002 that killed 13 Kenyans and three Israeli tourists.By 2003, al-Masri was among several Qaida leaders who fled to Iran which, although hostile to the group, seemed out of American reach."They believed the United States would find it very difficult to act against them there," Schweitzer said. "Also because they believed that the chances of the Iranian regime doing an exchange deal with the Americans that would include their heads were very slim."Al-Masri was one of the few high-ranking members of the organization to survive the American hunt for the perpetrators of 9/11 and other attacks. When he and other Qaida leaders fled to Iran, they were initially kept under house arrest.In 2015, Iran announced a deal with al-Qaida in which it released five of the organization's leaders, including al-Masri, in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who had been abducted in Yemen.Abdullah's footprints faded away, but according to one of the intelligence officials, he continued to live in Tehran, under the protection of the Revolutionary Guards and later the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. He was allowed to travel abroad and did, mainly to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.Some American analysts said al-Masri's death would sever connections between one of the last original Qaida leaders and the current generation of Islamist militants, who have grown up after bin Laden's 2011 death."If true, this further cuts links between old-school al-Qaida and the modern jihad," said Nicholas J. Rasmussen, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. "It just further contributes to the fragmentation and decentralization of the al-Qaida movement."--TIMELINE1963Abu Muhammad al-Masri was born in northern Egypt, and grew up to play soccer in Egypt's top professional league. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he joined the jihad movement there.1980sAfter the Soviets withdrew, Egypt refused to allow al-Masri to return. He remained in Afghanistan, and eventually joined Osama bin Laden in a group that was later to become the nucleus of al-Qaida.EARLY 1990sAl-Masri traveled with bin Laden to Khartoum, Sudan, where he began forming military cells. He also went to Somalia, where he helped train the fighters who fought U.S. troops in a battle popularly known as the Black Hawk Down attack.1998Al-Masri was one of the masterminds of the deadly attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.2000Al-Masri became one of the nine members of al-Qaida's governing council and was put in charge of the organization's military training activities.2002While overseeing African operations, he issued orders for the attacks in Mombasa, Kenya, that killed 15 people, according to a former Israeli Intelligence official.2003After the 9/11 attacks, al-Masri was among several Qaida leaders who fled to Iran. They were initially held under house arrest.2015Iran and al-Qaida announced a deal in which Iran released five of the organization's leaders, including al-Masri, from prison in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who had been abducted in Yemen.2020Al-Masri was secretly assassinated in Tehran at the behest of the U.S., officials said. But no one -- Iran, al-Qaida, the U.S. or Israel -- publicly acknowledged the killing.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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Boris Johnson is in self-isolation after a British parliament member he spent 35 minutes with tested positive for COVID-19, reports say

Johnson and Conservative MP Lee Anderson attended a 35-minute last week and were photographed standing side by side, unmasked.

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Azerbaijan hits out at Armenians burning their homes as they flee conquered territory

Azerbaijan on Sunday postponed taking control of a territory ceded by Armenian forces in a cease-fire agreement, but denounced civilians leaving the area for burning houses and committing what it called "ecological terror." The cease-fire ended six weeks of intense fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and territories outside its formal borders that had been under the control of Armenian forces since 1994. The agreement calls for Azerbaijan to take control of the outlying territories. The first, Kelbajar, was to be turned over on Sunday. But Azerbaijan agreed to delay the takeover until Nov 25 after a request from Armenia. Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said worsening weather conditions made the withdrawal of Armenian forces and civilians difficult along the single road through mountainous territory that connects Kelbajar with Armenia. After the agreement was announced early Tuesday, many distraught residents preparing to evacuate set their houses ablaze to make them unusable to Azerbaijanis who would move in. "Armenians are damaging the environment and civilian objects. Environmental damage, ecological terror must be prevented," Mr Hajiyev said. Prior to a separatist war that ended in 1994, Kelbajar was populated almost exclusively by Azerbaijanis. But the territory then came under Armenian control and Armenians moved in. Azerbaijan deemed their presence illegal. "The placement and settlement of the Armenian population in the occupied territory of the Kelbajar region was illegal ... All illegal settlements there must be evicted," Mr Hajiyev said. The imminent renewal of Azerbaijani control raised wide concerns about the fate of Armenian cultural and religious sites, particularly Dadivank, a noted Armenian Apostolic Church monastery that dates back to the ninth century. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev assured Russian President Vladimir Putin, who negotiated the cease-fire and is sending about 2,000 peacekeeping troops, that Christian churches would be protected. "Christians of Azerbaijan will have access to these churches," Mr Aliyev's office said in statement Sunday. Azerbaijan is about 95 per cent Muslim and Armenia is overwhelmingly Christian. Azerbaijan accuses Armenians of desecrating Muslim sites during their decades of control of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territories, including housing livestock in mosques.

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Erdogan says Cyprus to stay divided, visits 'ghost town' in Turkish-held north

Turkey's president said he favours a permanent "two-state" division of Cyprus during a visit Sunday to the breakaway Turkish-held north condemned as a provocation by the internationally recognised Greek-speaking south.

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Column: The Georgia Senate runoffs could make all the difference. But is electing a Democrat possible?

As money comes pouring in from Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and election ads saturate the state, will will there be a backlash from Georgia voters?

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A secretive Republican group called Amish PAC ended the election cycle with money in its pocket

The PAC is funded in large part by three major GOP donors whose connections to the Amish community are not apparent

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Armenians set fire to homes before handing village over to Azerbaijan

Still wearing the camouflage fatigues in which he had fought against Azeri forces a week earlier, Arsen, an ethnic Armenian, lit a fire on Saturday under his sister's dining room table in the small village of Charektar. Armenians are resorting to a scorched earth policy as the clock ticks down to a handover of territory to Azerbaijan under a Russia-brokered peace deal that followed six weeks of fighting between ethnic Armenian forces and Azeri troops over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.

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Vietnam bracing for Typhoon Vamco as death toll in Philippines rises to 53

Vietnam was bracing for Typhoon Vamco to make landfall in the country's central coast early on Sunday, as the death toll in the Philippines rose to 53 from that country's deadliest storm this year. Packing winds of up to 165 kph (103 mph), Vamco is forecast to hit a swathe of Vietnam's coast from Ha Tinh to Quang Ngai province, the government's weather agency said on Saturday. "This is a very strong typhoon," Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said, warning provinces in Vamco's projected path to prepare for its impact. The provinces plan to evacuate 468,000 people by the end of Saturday, state media cited the government's disaster management authority as saying. Vietnam is prone to destructive storms and flooding due to its long coastline. Vamco will be the 13th storm that affects the Southeast Asian country this year, where more than 160 people have been killed in natural disasters triggered by a series of storms since early October.

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Huge India oil well fire extinguished after five months

A massive oil well fire that raged for more than five months in northeast India has finally been extinguished, officials said Sunday.

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Joe Biden administration: president-elect assembles a diverse cabinet

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Sunday, 15 November 2020

Chicago boy, 12, shot while picking up school supplies with father

A 12-year-old boy is lucky to be alive after he was shot multiple times in Chicago while shopping for school supplies with his father. Lamar Davis was sitting in a parked car in the city’s Lawndale area on Wednesday, when a maroon SUV pulled up, rolled down a rear window and someone opened fire with a .45-caliber handgun, per the Chicago Tribune. “He was just sitting there in the car and someone shot him,” Lamar’s mother, Melissa Robinson, told the Chicago Tribune.

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El Paso COVID-19 ruling could impact Houston

Some small business owners are worried a new presidential administration may bring an unbearable lockdown that their businesses won't survive.

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Booming population helped Dems in Georgia. Mississippi's 'brain drain' is keeping it red.

Political experts say Mississippi won't see nail-biter elections, especially at the nation level, anytime soon — thanks in part to stalled population growth.

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A Biden COVID-19 advisor suggested a national lockdown lasting up to 6 weeks, but said the idea was unlikely to gain support

On Thursday Michael Osterholm told ABC News that he had not discussed this idea with others and added he did not believe it would gain support.

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Coronavirus concerns may have kept Trump from meeting newly-elected GOP lawmakers in person at White House

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) set up a visit to the White House for newly-elected Republican lawmakers Friday evening, but they didn't get a chance to meet President Trump in person, Politico reports.The president did reportedly send his regards to the newcomers, but the fact that he stayed out of the spotlight raised some eyebrows.> Weird @playbookplus note: "LAST NIGHT, MCCARTHY took the newly elected Republicans to the White House...INTERESTING TO NOTE: President DONALD TRUMP did not come down to meet the group. He did send his well wishes."> > -- Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) November 14, 2020As it turns out, further reporting revealed Trump probably wasn't standing anyone up, but, in a bit of twist, likely stayed away because the group hadn't been tested for COVID-19 prior to their arrival. > UPDATE to Playbook: MCCARTHY himself didn't go to the W.H. w the new freshmen Republicans -- but his team organized, attended. POTUS didn't go down to say hi, and that could be because the group of newly elected GOP lawmakers was not tested for Covid @ WH, per several sources.> > -- Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 14, 2020More stories from theweek.com 7 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's refusal to concede Trump is reportedly 'very aware' he lost the election but is putting up a fight as 'theater' Texas senator suggests it's too soon to declare Biden the winner because Puerto Rico is still counting votes

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A local news anchor in Milwaukee was suspended after he asked why 2020 took Alex Trebek but not Mitch McConnell

"2020 takes Alex Trebek but leaves Mitch McConnell?" Perry, who anchors the 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts wrote. "Just end already."

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Pro-Trump senator says Covid survivors should throw away their masks and ‘celebrate’ as he falsely claims they are immune

US has recorded more than 100,000 Covid-19 cases every day for the last week

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Egypt finds treasure trove of over 100 sarcophagi

Egypt announced Saturday the discovery of an ancient treasure trove of more than a 100 intact sarcophagi, dating back more than 2,500 years ago, the largest such find this year.

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Judge: Newsom overstepped authority with mail-in ballots mandate

A Sutter County judge finalized a ruling Friday night saying Gov. Gavin Newsom overstepped his authority when mandating all Californians receive mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 general election.

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Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, supporter of QAnon, denounces House mask requirement

Amid a raging coronavirus pandemic, the incoming Republican freshman said she “proudly told my freshman class that masks are oppressive.”

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One of Biden's top coronavirus advisors calls for focused restrictions based on disease spread instead of a nationwide lockdown

"So we've got to follow science, but we've got to also be more precise than we were in the spring," Dr. Vivek Murthy said on Friday.

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What is the SpaceX Crew Dragon?

A guide to SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle, which carries astronauts to the space station.

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Elon Musk's positive COVID-19 test means he likely can't attend SpaceX's astronaut launch on Sunday, based on NASA rules

Musk's positive tests couldn't have come at a worse time: SpaceX is set to launch four NASA astronauts into orbit for its Crew-1 mission on Sunday.

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Biden's possible India links spark genealogical frenzy

Already bursting with pride at Kamala Harris's ancestry, India has now started digging up potential local roots for US President-elect Joe Biden.

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AG Barr faces push back after calling for voter fraud probe

On Nov. 9, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a memorandum regarding the 2020 presidential election calling for voter fraud to be investigated. Federal prosecutors are now pushing back on that order, according to a report from the New York Times. The memo, entitled Post-voting Election Irregularity Inquires, was addressed to several government agents and agencies, including federal attorneys and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with the Criminal, National Security and Civil Rights divisions.

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Egypt discovers ancient trove of intact sarcophagi near Cairo

Egypt announced on Saturday the discovery of an ancient treasure trove of more than a 100 intact sarcophagi, the largest such find this year. The sealed wooden coffins, unveiled on site amid fanfare, belonged to top officials of the Late Period and the Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt. They were found in three burial shafts at depths of 12 metres (40 feet) in the sweeping Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo. Archaeologists opened one coffin to reveal a mummy wrapped in a burial shroud adorned with brightly coloured hieroglyphic pictorials.

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