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June 01, 2017 ,
The United States is going it alone in walking away from the Paris climate agreement, designed to curb climate change.
The United States is going it alone in walking away from the Paris climate agreement, designed to curb climate change. 
President Trump announced Thursday that he will withdraw the United States from participation in the Paris climate accord, weakening global efforts to combat climate change and siding with conservatives who argued that the landmark 2015 agreement was harming the economy.
DONALD Trump will withdraw the US from the Paris agreement to curb climate change, in a move critics have slammed as “catastrophic” and “reckless”.

This puts the US at odds with 194 countries — including Australia — that signed up to the deal in 2015, which is designed to slow global warming and rising sea levels.

Former US president Barack Obama was quick to slam the decision, as did former vice president Al Gore, who said the withdrawal was “reckless and indefensible”.

CNN columnist John D Sutter categorised the pullout as “catastrophic both for this country and the planet”.

German news magazine Der Spiegel tweeted an image of its cover with the headline, “The end of the world as we know it” and the caption “America first! Earth last!”

The front page of the New York Daily News was equally direct.


The announcement, made Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, fulfils Mr Trump’s election promise to pull out of the pact, which he has described as a job killer.

“As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country,” Mr Trump said.

“So we’re getting out but we’ll start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine,” he said.
US President Donald Trump announces his decision on the Paris Climate Accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC.
US President Donald Trump announces his decision on the Paris Climate Accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC.
Mr Trump suggested that other nations were “laughing” at America and that the accord was “about other countries gaining an advantage over the United States”.

“At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?” Mr Trump said.

“We want fair treatment for its citizens and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers.

“We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be, they won’t be.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburg, not Paris.”

But the Mayor of Pittsburg has shot back on Twitter, slamming Trump’s decision.

Mr Trump’s announcement was met with applause from the crowd of supporters gathered in the Rose Garden.

The President said the US would endeavour to either re-enter the Paris accord or propose a new deal “on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers”.

“As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens,” he said.

“The Paris climate agreement is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production.”

The decision means the US will pull out of the Green Climate Fund, which Mr Trump said cost the country “a vast fortune”.

Citing a study by the National Economic Research Associates (NERA), the President said compliance with the existing deal would cost the US as many as 2.7 million jobs by 2025.

He said the agreement would “decimate” the coal, steel and car manufacturing industries.

Mr Trump stressed that he “cares deeply” about the environment. “Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals,” he said.

“As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States — the world’s leader in environmental protection — while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.”

Mr Trump said China had been given a free pass to increase its carbon emissions for a “staggering” 13 years.

Mr Obama said the withdrawal meant the Trump administration had made the US one of “a small handful of nations that reject the future”.

“I’m confident that our states, cities and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got,” he said in a statement.

Mr Gore, who starred in the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said the decision “undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time”.

Even oil companies have voiced opposition to pulling out of the agreement, with Exxon Mobil Corp and ConocoPhillips arguing that the US is better off with a seat at the table so it can influence global efforts to curb emissions, Bloomberg reports.

Weather.com mocked the President today with sarcastic headlines splashed across its homepage. “Hmm, I did not see a forecast for shade when I checked the Weather Channel app this morning. Yet here it is,” tweeted Politico senior editor Alex Weprin.
Mr Trump has argued behind closed doors in Washington that the Paris accord was a bad deal for America and was poorly negotiated by the Obama administration.

Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said he had spokem to Malcolm Turnbull, who is in Singapore, following the announcement, and Australia remains committed to the agreement.

“Donald Trump’s announcement today is obviously very significant but Australia will carry on because as our prime minister has made very clear, when we sign up to international agreements ...we will follow through,” Mr Frydenberg told the ABC today.

Before Mr Trump’s official position was made public, Mr Turnbull confirmed that Australia would stick to its targets.

“When Australia makes a commitment to a global agreement, we follow through and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” the Prime Minister told Parliament.

Critics have argued that Mr Trump’s decision amounts to the US shirking its responsibility as the leader of the free world.

The withdrawal puts the US in a dubious club with Nicaragua and Syria as the only countries to reject the agreement.
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May 22, 2017 ,
Donald Trump arrives in Israel today to try to revive the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process but his trip begins under the shadow of unexpected tensions with the Right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Donald Trump is arriving in Israel after a two-day trip to Saudi Arabia
Donald Trump arrives in Israel today to try to revive the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process but his trip begins under the shadow of unexpected tensions with the Right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
While the Israeli Right openly cheered Mr Trump’s election, many have been surprised by his enthusiastic pursuit of the “the ultimate deal” - an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty - and his calls for Israel to hold off on expanding settlements while the president tries to broker talks.

The US and Israeli sides have clashed in recent days over the status of Jerusalem, after the White House refused to say whether it considered the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, to be part of Israel.

The flare-up forced Mr Netanyahu to declare on Sunday that the Western Wall will “always be under Israeli sovereignty” and would never be given up during any peace talks.
Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would always have sovereignty over the Western Wall
Mr Trump will become the first sitting US president ever to go to the Western Wall today, but the White House pointedly refused to let Mr Netanyahu join on the visit, fearing that the Israeli prime minister’s presence would make it look like the US was acknowledging Israeli sovereignty.

Mr Netanyahu struck an upbeat note at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, telling Mr Trump that Israel will “receive you with open arms”.

“I will discuss with President Trump ways to strengthen even further the first and strongest alliance with the US. We will strengthen security ties, which are strengthening daily, and we will also discuss ways to advance peace,” Mr Netanyahu said.

But behind the scenes the prime minister spent the weekend in a series of bruising confrontations with his own ministers ahead of the trip. 

Many Israeli ministers reportedly decided not to attend the welcoming ceremony for Mr Trump at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport because of the onerous security and because they would not get a chance to shake the president’s hand.

After learning that only a few of his ministers planned to show up, a furious Mr Netanyahu ordered all his cabinet members to make an appearance, according to Haaretz.

Israel was reportedly concerned that its welcome might seem small compared to the lavish ceremony put on by Saudi Arabia, complete with horse guards and a military flyover, when Mr Trump arrived in the Arab state.

In a gesture of goodwill towards Mr Trump’s peacemaking efforts, Mr Netanyahu also forced through a series of measures designed to improve life for the roughly 2.5 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.

The package, which will allow for thousands of Palestinians homes to be built and some easing of checkpoint restrictions, was opposed by ministers from the Right. 
Mr Trump will also meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

The Palestinians appear to have attempted a goodwill gesture of their own with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, reportedly prepared to offer greater land swaps as part of a peace deal than the Palestinian side has previously agreed to.

Mr Trump has so far shown little interest in the fiendishly complex details of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking but has said he is bullish on the chances for peace. “I think we have a very, very good chance of making a deal,” he told the Israel Hayom newspaper.

No breakthroughs are expected during Mr Trump’s 28-hour visit but the US hopes it will lay the groundwork for renewed talks supported by the Arab world. 

Mr Trump will urge Israel to hold off on settlement expansion and encourage the Palestinians to stop incitement of violence towards Israel, a US official said.

The US president will meet be greeted at the airport by Mr Netanyahu and then meet with Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s figurehead president who has few formal powers.

From there he will head to Jerusalem’s Old City, where he will visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - built on what is believed to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion - and the Western Wall. In the evening he will meet with Mr Netanyahu.

On Tuesday, Mr Trump will head to Bethlehem to meet with Mr Abbas and then visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial. He will end the visit with a speech at the Israel Museum, where is expected to lay out his broad vision of a peace deal.

The visit is taking place amid an huge security operation, nicknamed “Blue Shield” by Israel’s security forces. Around 5,000 police officers are on the streets of Jerusalem and many of the roads around the King David hotel have been closed for Mr Trump’s security.

His entourage has taken up 1,100 hotel rooms across the city and hotels that normally accommodate tourists to the Holy Land have been turned into command centres for the White House and the Secret Service.

“While the president is here, we’re both the White House and Fort Knox,” said Sheldon Ritz, the director of operations at the King David.

Some residents of the Old City have been forced to stay in their homes in the hours ahead of Mr Trump’s visit while security preparations are put in place.  
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May 20, 2017 ,
Richard Rojas told police he had been smoking marijuana laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP, a court heard
Richard Rojas told police he had been smoking marijuana laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP, a court heard
A man with a history of drunken driving has been charged with murder after police say he barreled a car through the crowded sidewalks in Manhattan's Time Square, leaving one person dead and 20 injured.
Moments after barreling his car through the crowded sidewalks in Manhattan's Times Square, Richard Rojas told a traffic agent, "I wanted to kill them all," according to a criminal complaint.

A troubled man with a history of drunken driving, Rojas bolted from his maroon Honda Accord after his deadly midday rampage on Thursday that left one person dead and 20 others injured.

Rojas moved unsteadily, his eyes were glassy and his speech slurred after his car crashed to a fiery stop, the complaint said.

"I smoked," Rojas allegedly told an officer after . He later told another officer, "I smoked marijuana. I laced the marijuana with PCP," according to the complaint.

One day after allegedly making a U-turn and steering the car onto packed sidewalks for a three-block stretch, the 26-year-old suspect was arraigned on murder and other charges Friday. He did not enter a plea, and his lawyer later declined comment.

One surveillance video showed the car jump the curb and slam into a group of people, sending bodies tumbling over the hood of the speeding car.

Alyssa Elsman, an 18-year-old resident of Portage, Michigan, who was visiting the city, was killed. Authorities reported another 22 people were injured, but police revised the total to 20 on Friday.

Rojas, a Bronx resident who had served in the Navy, tested positive for PCP and told police that God made him do it, a law enforcement source said.

The suspect, who suffered from "psychological issues," also told police he expected officers to shoot him, according to the source.

A history of mental health issues

Investigators are looking into the suspect's state of mind and psychological history in an attempt to determine a motive, the NYPD chief of Manhattan South Detectives William Aubry said.

"We're now hearing from family members [that Rojas] has had demonstrated mental health issues going back to childhood that ... went unaddressed even during the time he was in the U.S. military," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told WNYC Radio Friday.

De Blasio added, "It appears to be intentional in the sense that he was troubled and lashing out. At the root of this ... is an untreated mental health issue going back probably decades."

In addition to the murder charge, Rojas also faces 20 counts of attempted murder, one count of aggravated vehicular homicide and a count of attempted murder in the second degree, according to the criminal complaint.

Three victims were in critical condition Friday, including a 38-year-old Canadian woman whom Aubry described "very critical."

The injured included Elsman's 13-year-old sister, Ava, according to Michelle Karpinski of Portage Public Schools. 

Alyssa Elsman, 18, was was killed when a speeding car plowed into pedestrians in Times Square.
Elsman was a 2016 graduate of Portage Central High School.


"Alyssa was the type of person who seemed very shy and reserved when you first met her, but once you started talking to her you realized she was smart, funny and engaging," principal Eric Alburtus said in a statement. "She will be deeply missed by the staff and students here." 


Rojas has been arrested twice in New York -- in 2015 and 2008 -- for drunken driving, New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill said.

In 2013, Rojas -- while in the Navy in Florida-- pleaded guilty to drunken driving, failure to pay a just debt, drunk and disorderly conduct and communicating a threat.

As he was arrested at the Mayport Naval Base, Rojas told officers, "My life is over," and threatened to kill police and military police, according to CNN affiliate WJXT. A military judge sentenced him to three months confinement.

Last Friday, Rojas was charged with menacing in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the Bronx after he threatened a person with a knife, according to a criminal complaint. He accused the person of trying to steal his identity.
He pleaded guilty at arraignment to second-degree harassment, a violation, and was given a conditional discharge, said Bronx district attorney spokeswoman Melanie Dostis.

There is no indication that the incident in Times Square, which unfolded just before noon, was an act of terrorism, de Blasio and other officials said.

A post shared by Stan The Man (@killakowal) on

Harrowing scene in popular tourist area

Before striking pedestrians, the 2009 Honda Accord was "out of control," an emergency management official said. 
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The speeding car jumped the sidewalk on the west side of 7th Avenue at 42nd Street and struck several pedestrians before crashing at the northwest corner of 45th Street, police said.

Witnesses described a harrowing scene that started with screeching tires and ended with screams, chaos and a fiery crash at one of the world's most visited sites.

Elizabeth Long, of Dayton, Ohio, was walking to the Hard Rock Cafe when she saw a maroon car heading toward her on the sidewalk. Hearing screams and fearing that the car would hit her, she ran to a nearby building's revolving door.

"I wasn't even all the way in when the car sped by" about 10 feet away, said Long, a 54-year-old who was in town to see a musical.

When Long went outside, she saw at least six people lying on the ground, including a woman lying face-down with blood pouring from her head.
"I'm shaken," said Long, who wasn't injured. "Two of the people I saw that were really hurt, people were beside them ... we were trying to tell (police) they were hurt."
"I felt so bad ... standing there," not being able to do anything more to help, she said.
A tourist from Argentina said that he was shocked to see the car that "was like bowling, hitting people." 

Witness: Driver was screaming and flailing his arms

Annette Proehl of Pennsylvania was in Times Square with children on a field trip when she heard the screeching tires of the vehicle and people screaming. She watched the car slam into a steel divider and catch fire, she said. 

"It was more of a surreal thing," she said. "We initially thought they were filming something." 

A wrecked car sits in the intersection of 45th and Broadway in Times Square.
A wrecked car sits in the intersection of 45th and Broadway in Times Square.
The car was lodged on a steel bollard -- of which there are more than 200 on Times Square sidewalks to stop vehicles from coming through.
The car's windshield was shattered and flames billowed from the hood.

That's when Planet Hollywood employee Kenya Brandix spotted the driver fleeing from the car. Bradix tackled Rojas to the ground.

"The person just got out of the car," Brandix told HLN. "He ran across the street, flailing his arms and screaming. No words but just screaming." 

Brandix and others have since been hailed as heroes for helping to restrain the driver.
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May 13, 2017 ,
The “ransomware” attacks across continents raised fears that people would not be able to meet ransom demands before their data are destroyed.
A sign outside the Royal London Hospital, in Central London. The hospital was one of a number of hospitals and institutions operated by Britain’s National Health Service hit Friday by a large-scale ransomware cyber attack.
The “ransomware” attacks across continents raised fears that people would not be able to meet ransom demands before their data are destroyed.
Governments, companies and security experts from China to the United Kingdom on Saturday raced to contain the fallout from an audacious cyberattack that spread quickly across the globe, raising fears that people would not be able to meet ransom demands before their data are destroyed.

 The global efforts come less than a day after malicious software, transmitted via email and stolen from the National Security Agency, exposed vulnerabilities in computer systems in almost 100 countries in one of the largest “ransomware” attacks on record.

 The cyberattackers took over the computers, encrypted the information on them and then demanded payment of $300 or more from users to unlock the devices. Some of the world’s largest institutions and government agencies were affected, including the Russian Interior Ministry, FedEx in the United States and Britain’s National Health Service.

 As people fretted over whether to pay the digital ransom or lose data from their computers, experts said the attackers might pocket more than $1 billion worldwide before the deadline ran out to unlock the machines.
Continue reading the main story

 The coordinated attack was first reported in the United Kingdom and spread globally. It has set off fears that the effects of the continuing threat will be felt for months, if not years. It also raised questions about the intentions of the hackers: Did they carry out the attack for mere financial gain or for other unknown reasons?

 “Ransomware attacks happen every day — but what makes this different is the size and boldness of the attack,” said Robert Pritchard, a cybersecurity expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, in London. “Despite people’s best efforts, this vulnerability still exists, and people will look to exploit it.”

 While most cyberattacks are inherently global, the current one, experts say, is more virulent than most. Security firms said the attacks had spread to all corners of the globe, with Russia hit the worst, followed by Ukraine, India and Taiwan, said Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity firm.

 The attack is believed to be the first in which such a cyberweapon developed by the N.S.A. has been used by cybercriminals against computer users around the globe.

 Across Asia, several universities and organizations said they had been affected. In China, the virus hit the computer networks of both companies and universities, according to the state-run news media. News about the attack began trending on Chinese social media on Saturday, though most attention was focused on university networks, where there were concerns about students losing access to their academic work.

 The attack also spread like wildfire in Europe. Companies like Deutsche Bahn, the German transport giant; Telefónica, a Spanish telecommunications firm, though no major service problems had been reported across the region’s transportation or telecom networks.

 Renault, the European automaker, said on Saturday that its French operations had been hit by the attack, while one of its plants in Slovakia was shut down because of the digital virus. Nissan, the Japanese auto giant, said that its manufacturing center in Sunderland in the north of England had been affected, though a spokesman declined to comment on whether the company’s production had been stopped.

 The British National Health Service said that 45 of its hospitals, doctors’ offices and ambulance companies had been crippled — making it perhaps one of the largest institutions affected worldwide. Surgical procedures were canceled and some hospital operations shut down as government officials struggled to respond to the attack.

 “We are not able to tell you who is behind that attack,” Amber Rudd, Britain’s home secretary, told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday. “That work is still ongoing.”

 While American companies like FedEx said they had also been hit, experts said that computer users in the United States had so far been less affected than others after a British cybersecurity researcher inadvertently stopped the ransomware attack from spreading more widely.

 As part of the digital attack, the hackers, who have yet to be identified, had included a way of disabling the malware in case they wanted to shut down their activities. To do so, the assailants included code in the ransomware that would stop it from spreading if the virus sent an online request to a website created by the attackers.

This so-called kill switch would stop the malware from spreading as soon as the website went online and communicated with the spreading digital virus.

When the 22-year-old British researcher, whose Twitter handle is @MalwareTechBlog, confirmed his involvement but insisted on anonymity because he did not want the public scrutiny, saw that the kill switch’s domain name — a long and complicated set of letters — had yet to be registered, he bought it himself. By making the site go live, the researcher shut down the hacking attack before it could fully spread to the United States.

“The kill switch is why the U.S. hasn’t been touched so far,” said Matthieu Suiche, founder of Comae Technologies, a cybersecurity company in the United Arab Emirates. “But it’s only temporary. All the attackers would have to do is create a variant of the hack with a different domain name. I would expect them to do that.”

The ability of the cyberattack to spread so quickly was partly because of its high level of sophistication.

The malware, experts said, was based on a method that the N.S.A. is believed to have developed as part of its arsenal of cyberweapons. Last summer, a group calling itself the “Shadow Brokers” posted online digital tools that it had stolen from the United States government’s stockpile of hacking weapons.


The connection to the N.S.A. is likely to draw further criticism from privacy advocates who have repeatedly called for a clampdown on how the agency collects information online.

As the fallout from the attack continued, industry officials said law enforcement would find it difficult to catch the ringleaders, mostly because such cyberattacks are borderless crimes in which the attackers hide behind complex technologies that mask their identities. At the same time, national legal systems were not created to handle such global crimes.

Brian Lord, a former deputy director for intelligence and cyberoperations at Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s equivalent to the N.S.A., said that any investigation, which would include the F.B.I. and the National Crime Agency of Britain, would take months to identify the attackers, if it ever does.

By focusing the attacks on large institutions with a track record of not keeping their technology systems up-to-date, global criminal organizations can cherry-pick easy targets that are highly susceptible to such hacks, according to Mr. Lord.

“Serious organized crime is looking to these new technologies to the maximum effect,” Mr. Lord said. “With cybercrime, you can operate globally without leaving where you already are.”

Of the current attack, he said: “It was well thought-out, well timed and well coordinated. But, fundamentally, there is nothing unusual about its delivery. It is still fundamentally robbery and extortion.”

As part of the efforts to combat the attack, Microsoft, whose Windows software lies at the heart of the potential hacking vulnerability, released a software update available to those affected by the attack and others that could be potential targets.

Yet, security experts said the software upgrade, while laudable, came too late for many of the tens of thousands of machines that were locked and whose data could be erased.

Government officials and industry watchers also warned on Saturday that other hackers might now try to use the global ransomware attack for their own means, potentially tweaking the code and developing their own targets for new cyberattacks.

“As with everything in cyber, we’re now waiting for the next type of attack,” said Paul Bantick, a cyber security expert at Beazley, a global insurance underwriter, who has handled similar ransomware attacks for clients around the world.

“Ransomware like this has been on the rise over the last 18 months,” he said. “This represents the next step that people were expecting.”
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May 08, 2017 ,
Belgium just banned kosher and halal slaughter in its biggest territory
Both Jewish kosher and Islamic halal rituals require the butcher to swiftly slaughter the animal by slitting its throat and draining its blood - Getty Images
European Jewish Congress condemns decision as 'the greatest assault on Jewish religious rights in Belgium since the Nazi occupation of the country in World War II'

Belgium's Wallooon region has voted to ban kosher and halal meats by outlawing the slaughter of unstunned animals.

The environment committee of southern Belgium's Walloon Parliament voted unanimously for the ban, which will take effect on 1 September, 2019.

Both Jewish kosher and Islamic halal rituals require the butcher to swiftly slaughter the animal by slitting its throat and draining its blood, a process condemned by animal rights campaigners, who argue it is more humane to stun animals before killing them.

Similar legislation has been proposed by the parliament in the northern Flemish region.

The European Jewish Congress has strongly condemned the decision, calling it "scandalous".

“This decision, in the heart of Western Europe and the centre of the European Union, sends a terrible message to Jewish communities throughout our continent that Jews are unwanted," EJC president Moshe Kantor said.

"It attacks the very core of our culture and religious practice and our status as equal citizens with equal rights in a democratic society. It gives succour to antisemites and to those intolerant of other communities and faiths."

He added: “We call on legislators to step back from the brink of the greatest assault on Jewish religious rights in Belgium since the Nazi occupation of the country in World War II."

A ban on the slaughter of animals without stunning will come into effect in January 2019 in the Flemish region of Belgium, the De Morgen daily newspaper reports.

Belgium's Muslim community said its religious council has previously expressed its opposition to stunned slaughter and there had been no change in its stance since then.

"Muslims are worried about whether they can eat halal food ... in conformity with their religious rites and beliefs," the Belgian Muslim Executive said.

Countries including Denmark, Switzerland and New Zealand already prohibit unstunned slaughter.
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May 02, 2017
Trump campaign blasts CNN for not airing 100 days ad
A screenshot of the Donald J. Trump for President, Inc's 100 days ad (Photo: YouTube)
President Trump's re-election campaign blasted CNN on Tuesday, saying the network refused to air an ad about Trump's first 100 days in office.
President Trump's re-election campaign blasted CNN on Tuesday, saying the network refused to air an ad about Trump's first 100 days in office.

In an email sent out to supporters, the campaign, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc, called CNN "fake news," a barb often used by the president himself.

"It is absolutely shameful to see the media blocking the positive message that President Trump is trying to share with the country," Michael Glassner, the campaign's executive director, said in a statement. "It's clear that CNN is trying to silence our voice and censor our free speech because it doesn't fit their narrative."

Part of the ad in question attacks the media, spelling out the words "fake news" and saying, "You wouldn't know it from watching the news."

The network requested that the campaign remove the graphic calling the mainstream media "fake news," a CNN spokeswoman said in an email.

"The mainstream media is not fake news, and therefore the ad is false and per policy will be accepted only if that graphic is deleted," the spokeswoman said.
While the network rejected the ad, it could still air on CNN through a local ad buy.

The ad also highlights the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, signing off on the Keystone XL pipeline and the release of his tax reform proposal.

"Donald Trump. Sworn in as president 100 days ago, America has rarely seen such success," the ad said.
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April 29, 2017 ,
An undated file photo released on 24 April 2016 by North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows an 'underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile' conducted at an undisclosed location in North Korea. According to media reports on 28 April 2017 state that North Korea has test-fired a ballistic missile an area just north of Pyongyang.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea's missile exploded shortly after launch. has test-id a missile from the western part of its country.
A North Korean ballistic missile test failed on takeoff early Saturday, the second straight failure this month, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The test came amid heightened global tensions over the reclusive nation's nuclear weapons program, which President Trump has vowed to stop through military means if diplomatic efforts and economic pressure fail.

The missile apparently exploded seconds after liftoff, South Korea's joint chiefs of staff said in a statement, according to Yonhap.

The missile was fired from a site in South Pyeongan province north of Pyongyang, the capital, in the early hours of Saturday morning local time, the BBC reported.

North Korea has not commented publicly on the latest firing.

In a statement, the U.S. Pacific Command office said the missile did not leave North Korean territory. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) "determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America," according to the statement.

The abortive test came just hours after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for tougher sanctions on China and others who trade with North Korea. He told the United Nations Security Council that military action should be considered along with other options.

"All options for responding to future provocations must remain on the table," he said. "Diplomatic and financial levers of power will be backed up by willingness to counteract North Korean aggression with military action, if necessary."

Tillerson said failure to act would be "catastrophic."

North Korea routinely test-fires a variety of ballistic missiles, despite U.N. prohibitions, as part of its push to develop a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching U.S. shores.

A missile launch on April 16 also failed upon launch. It followed a massive military parade, marking the birthday of North Korea state founder Kim Il-sung.

President Trump has taken a hard line with Pyongyang, vowing to prevent the regime of Kim Jong Un from developing a nuclear weapon capable of striking the U.S. He has pressed China, North Korea's closest ally and economic lifeline, to use its influence to persuade Kim to end his nuclear program.

Picture Source : USA TODAY
Trump was briefed on the latest missile test, the White House said in a statement. Shortly after, Trump tweeted that North Korea's test was a show of "disrespect" for China.

"North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!", Trump tweeted.

North Korea has vowed to defend itself with its stockpile of nuclear weapons if the U.S. attacks its territory. South Korea's capital of Seoul, with a metropolitan population of 25 million and thousands of U.S. troops stationed there, is a short distance from the North Korean border.
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April 25, 2017 ,
One study in Israel is studying the effects of cannabis oil on people with severe autism and early returns show it may work miracles.
Yael Shulman sits with her daughter Noa.
MODI’IN, ISRAEL — When Noa Shulman came home from school, her mother, Yael, sat her down to eat, then spoon-fed her mashed sweet potatoes — mixed with cannabis oil.

Noa, who has a severe form of autism, started to bite her own arm. “No sweetie,” Yael gently told her 17-year-old daughter. “Here, have another bite of this.”

Noa is part of the first clinical trial in the world to test the benefits of medicinal marijuana for young people with autism, a potential breakthrough that would offer relief for millions of afflicted children — and their anguished parents.

There is anecdotal evidence that marijuana’s main non-psychoactive compound — cannabidiol or CBD — helps children in ways no other medication has. Now this first-of-its-kind scientific study is trying to determine if the link is real.

Israel is a pioneer in this type of research. It permitted the use of medical marijuana in 1992, one of the first countries to do so. It's also one of just three countries with a government-sponsored medical cannabis program, along with Canada and the Netherlands.

Conducting cannabis research is also less expensive here and easier under Israeli laws, particularly compared to the United States, which has many more legal restrictions.

Autism is one of the fastest-growing developmental disorders, affecting 1 in 68 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its debilitating symptoms include impaired communication and social skills, along with compulsive and repetitive behaviors. Autism typically emerges in infancy or early childhood.

Advocates for combating the disorder are calling attention to it by declaring April National Autism Awareness Month.

Noa's mother has to feed and bathe her and change her diapers. Noa is unable to speak and often behaves aggressively. Yael, a mother of three with a full-time job in this city halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, has tried to find caretakers to help, but they don’t last long.

Only two medications have been approved in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration to treat the symptoms of autism. Both are antipsychotic drugs that are not always effective and carry serious side effects.

When Noa took them, “she was like a zombie,” Yael said. “She would just sit there with her mouth wide open, not moving.”

Noa is part of a study that began in January at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. It involves 120 children and young adults, ages 5 to 29, who have mild to severe autism, and it will last through the end of 2018.

Adi Aran, the pediatric neurologist leading the study, said nearly all the participants previously took antipsychotics and nearly half responded negatively. Yael desperately pushed Aran and other doctors to prescribe cannabis oil after a news report aired about a mother who illegally obtained it for her autistic son and said it was the only thing that helped him.

“Many parents were asking for cannabis for their kids,” Aran said. “First I said, 'No, there’s no data to support cannabis for autism, so we can’t give it to you.'”

He said that changed about a year ago after studies in Israel showed that cannabis helped children with epilepsy by drastically reducing seizures and improving behavior for those who also have autism. Epilepsy afflicts about 30% of autistic children, Aran said.

Mounting anecdotal reports of autistic children who benefited from cannabis also led Aran to pursue more scientific testing. After seeing positive results in 70 of his autistic patients in an observational study, Aran said, “OK we need to do a clinical trial so there will be data."

Study participants are given liquid drops like those mixed into Noa's sweet potatoes. They receive one of two different cannabis oil formulas, or a placebo. The oil does not cause a high because of low levels of THC, marijuana's main psychoactive ingredient.

Yael doesn't know if her daughter is receiving the cannabis or a placebo. Noa is calmer on some days since beginning the trial, she said, but on other days she's aggressive and irritable.

Even so, just being a part of the study gives Yael hope. “I had really come to a point where I no longer had the power — not physically, not emotionally,” she said.

More than 110 cannabis clinical trials are underway in Israel — more than any other country, according to Michael Dor, senior medical adviser at the Health Ministry’s medical cannabis unit.

Alan Shackelford, a Harvard-trained physician, sparked a surge in American interest in cannabis treatment for epileptic children in 2013, when he used medical marijuana to treat a young girl in Colorado and her seizures drastically decreased. He said he tried for years to conduct clinical trials in the U.S., but “I was meeting nothing but closed doors to study something that was so clearly beneficial.”

Shackelford said a colleague spent seven years trying to get approval from U.S. authorities to study cannabis treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. By contrast, Aran said it took Israel’s Ministry of Health six months to approve his clinical trial with autistic children.

“Israel leads the world in inquiries and studies on cannabis as a potential medical treatment,” said Shackelford, who recently launched an Israeli company to conduct research on medical cannabis here because of the restrictions he faced in the United States.

He said the U.S. government has funded $1.4 billion in marijuana research since 2008, but $1.1 billion of that went to studying addiction, withdrawal and drug abuse.

Aran cautioned against premature conclusions about cannabis as a treatment for autism, but he said many children have shown significant improvements. Some no longer hurt themselves or throw tantrums. Some are more communicative. Others were able to return to classes after they had been suspended for behavioral problems.

Tamir Gedo, CEO of Breath of Life Pharma, which provides the cannabis oil for the study, said one mother reported, "My child is speaking relentlessly. … He never spoke before. And he's 12 years old.”

One major concern is the long-term impact of prescribing cannabis to young patients, said Sarah Spence, co-director of the Autism Spectrum Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. “There certainly could be harm” to brain development, she said.

But opioids and antipsychotic drugs currently prescribed to children are more harmful, said Gedo. “These families have no other hope.”
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April 24, 2017
Trump condos worth $250 million pose potential conflict
Donald Trump and Phil Ruffin intended their gold-plated tower (a second one was never built) to be an expensive condo getaway for the super-rich until the recession hit.
LAS VEGAS — President Trump’s companies own more than 400 condo units and home lots whose sale could steer millions of dollars to Trump, a USA TODAY investigation has found.

USA TODAY spent four months cataloging every property Trump's companies own across the country. Reporters found that Trump’s companies are sitting on at least $250 million of individual properties in the USA alone. Property records show Trump’s trust and his companies own at least 422 luxury condos and penthouses from New York City to Las Vegas, 12 mansion lots on bluffs overlooking his golf course on the Pacific Ocean and dozens more smaller pieces of real estate. The properties range in value from about $200,000 to $35 million each.

Unlike developments where Trump licenses his name to a separate developer for a flat fee, profits from selling individual properties directly owned by his companies ultimately enrich him personally.

Trump has never disclosed a complete, unit-by-unit inventory of his companies' real estate holdings or sales, nor is he required to do so by federal law. Trump says he's separated himself from his businesses, but the trust set up in January is run by his sons. Trump is the only beneficiary and can withdraw funds at any time.

The volume of real estate creates an extraordinary and unprecedented potential for people, corporations or foreign interests to try to influence a president. Anyone who wanted to court favor with the president could snap up multiple properties or purposefully overpay. They could buy in the name of a shell company, making it impossible for the public to know who was behind the sales.

The potential for conflicts is exacerbated by Trump's refusal to release his tax returns or fully separate himself from his businesses, breaking with precedent set by presidents going back four decades. Since Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act in 1978, all six presidents from Carter to Obama established blind trusts or limited investments to assets like mutual funds. Trump has not.

The president is exempt from most conflict-of-interest laws that apply to others working in the federal government. He is not required to disclose when units sell or who bought them.

He is barred by the Constitution from receiving gifts from foreign governments or officials. Trump’s assessment that the ban doesn’t apply to market-rate transactions is debated in lawsuits and among ethics experts.

Regardless, it may be impossible for the public to even know who is behind purchase because the rules governing real estate transactions allow for shell companies to make purchases without disclosing who actually paid the money.

“Anyone seeking to influence the president could set up an anonymous company and purchase his property,” said Heather Lowe, director of government affairs at Global Financial Integrity, a D.C.-based group aimed at curbing illicit financial transactions. “It’s a big black box, and the system is failing as a check for conflicts of interest.”

Since Election Day, records show Trump companies have sold at least 14 luxury condos and home-building lots for about $23 million. Half were sold to limited liability companies. No names were listed in deeds, obscuring buyers’ identities.

Since launching his White House bid, Trump’s companies have sold at least 58 units nationwide for about $90 million. Almost half of those sold to LLCs.

That doesn’t count Trump's ownership of millions of square feet of some of America’s priciest office and retail rental space in Manhattan, Chicago and San Francisco.

Buyers and renters of Trump properties include companies or individuals tracing to addresses in at least a dozen countries.

The White House refers business inquiries to the Trump Organization, where four separate executives and spokesmen declined to answer specific questions.

Bobby Burchfield, an attorney hired as an independent ethics reviewer for Trump Organization business deals, wouldn’t answer specific questions about transactions.

Trump attorneys have argued that profits from individual real estate sales would route through a maze of Trump subsidiaries and eventually become mixed in a larger pool of undifferentiated money in the president’s trust. That, they say, makes a direct conflict from an individual sale more difficult to imagine. They do not consider sales of U.S. real estate to foreign investors as “foreign deals."

Those in the business of selling Trump-owned real estate say business is up.

“I get a lot more phone calls now that he’s the president,” said Shari Sanderson, a real estate agent that sells units in the Las Vegas hotel-condo tower.
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April 09, 2017 ,
The village of Dalgamon, Tanta, north of Cairo, Egypt.
CAIRO — At least 21 people were killed and dozens more injured after an explosion ripped through a Coptic Christian church in northern Egypt during a service to celebrate Palm Sunday, according to an official from the Health Ministry.
The explosion occurred at 9:30 a.m. at St. George’s Church in the Nile delta city of Tanta, 50 miles north of Cairo.
The deputy minister of health put the preliminary death toll at 21, but some local television reports said at least 25 people had died.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but the bombing followed a number of attacks by Islamic State militants targeting Egypt’s minority Christians.
It comes weeks before Pope Francis is to visit Egypt.
Photos from the scene circulating on social media showed scenes of devastation inside the church. Initial reports said that the explosion occurred in the pews near the front of the church, and that many of the dead were children.
A security official told the state news agency they believed the blast had been caused by an explosive device planted inside the church.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered military hospitals to treat the injured, Sky News Arabia reported.
Eyewitnesses said that an angry crowd outside the church attacked a young man they accused of being involved in the attack.
In December, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a chapel in the grounds of St. Mark’s Cathedral, the main Coptic Church in Cairo, killing at least 28 people.
In February, hundreds of Christians fled northern Sinai, where the Egyptian Army is fighting a local Islamic State affiliate, following a targeted campaign of violence and intimidation.
Christians, mostly Orthodox Copts, account for about 10 percent of Egypt’s population, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim.
Francis’ planned trip to the country is seen as an opportunity to improve ties between Christians and Muslims. The pontiff is to visit with Mr. Sisi; the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church; and the grand imam of Al Azhar, a 1,000-year-old mosque and university that is revered by Sunni Muslims.
In a news conference to provide details about the trip on Friday, the Catholic archbishop of Egypt, Bishop Emmanuel, said that the pope’s pending journey was a signal that Egypt is safe for visitors.
In 2011, a suicide bombing ripped through a throng of worshipers outside a Coptic Christian church in the port city of Alexandria, killing at least 21 people in one of the worst attacks against Egypt’s Christian minority.
Earlier this month, an explosion near a police training center in the Nile Delta city injured 13 officers.
In a Twitter post, a spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, said, “Terrorism hits Egypt again.”
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April 08, 2017 , , ,
The damage on Friday after a reported airstrike by the Syrian government in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus. 


WASHINGTON — As he confronted a series of international challenges from the Middle East to Asia last week, President Trump made certain that nothing was certain about his foreign policy. To the extent that a Trump Doctrine is emerging, it seems to be this: don’t get roped in by doctrine.
In a week in which he hosted foreign heads of state and launched a cruise missile strike against Syria’s government, Mr. Trump dispensed with his own dogma and forced other world leaders to re-examine their assumptions about how the United States will lead in this new era. He demonstrated a highly improvisational and situational approach that could inject a risky unpredictability into relations with potential antagonists, but he also opened the door to a more traditional American engagement with the world that eases allies’ fears.
As a private citizen and candidate, Mr. Trump spent years arguing that Syria’s civil war was not America’s problem, that Russia should be a friend, and that China was an “enemy” whose leaders should not be invited to dinner. As president, Mr. Trump, in the space of just days, involved America more directly in the Syrian morass than ever before, opened a new acrimonious rift with Russia, and invited China’s leader for a largely convivial, let’s-get-along dinner at his Florida estate.
In the process, Mr. Trump upended domestic politics as well. He rejected the nationalist wing of his own White House, led by Stephen K. Bannon, his chief strategist, who opposes entanglement in Middle East conflicts beyond fighting terrorism and favors punitive trade measures against Beijing. And Mr. Trump, by launching the strike on Russia’s ally Syria, undercut critics who have portrayed him as a Manchurian candidate doing the bidding of President Vladimir V. Putin after the Kremlin intervened in last year’s election on his behalf.
Given his unpredictability, none of this means that Mr. Trump has pivoted permanently in any of these areas. The White House has prepared an executive order that the president may sign in the coming days targeting countries like China that dump steel in the American market. And Mr. Trump is sending Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson on Tuesday to Moscow, where he will have the additional task of trying to smooth over the rancor of recent days, in addition to exploring whether Russia could be a real partner in battling the Islamic State in Syria.
Moreover, the missile strike, in response to a chemical weapons attack, was intended to be a limited, one-time operation, and the president seemed determined to quickly move on. After announcing the attack Thursday evening, he made no mention of it Friday during public appearances, nor on Saturday during his weekly address. As of Saturday morning, the Twitter-obssessed president had not even taunted President Bashar al-Assad of Syria online, although he did thank the American troops who carried out the missile strike.
“Our decisions,” Mr. Trump said in the Saturday address, “will be guided by our values and our goals — and we will reject the path of inflexible ideology that too often leads to unintended consequences.”
That concept, flexibility, seems key to understanding Mr. Trump. He hates to be boxed in, as he mused in the Rose Garden last week while contemplating the first new military operation of his presidency with geopolitical consequences.
“I like to think of myself as a very flexible person,” he told reporters. “I don’t have to have one specific way.” He made clear he cherished unpredictability. “I don’t like to say where I’m going and what I’m doing,” he said.
That flexibility was a hallmark of his rise in real estate, and if critics preferred the word erratic, it did not bother Mr. Trump — it has since worked well enough to vault him to the White House. But now that he is commander in chief of the world’s most powerful nation, leaders around the world are trying to detect a method to the man.
“There is no emerging doctrine for Trump foreign policy in a classical sense,” said Kathleen H. Hicks, a former Pentagon official who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There are, however, clear emerging characteristics consistent with the attributes of the man himself: unpredictable, instinctual and undisciplined.”
On Syria, Mr. Trump had mocked President Barack Obama for setting a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons and urged him not to launch a punitive strike against Syria after Mr. Assad crossed it in 2013. That attack, with a death toll of 1,400, dwarfed last week’s toll of 84. And just days before last week’s attack, Mr. Tillerson indicated that Washington would accept Mr. Assad’s remaining in power.
Indeed, critics, including Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, argued that Mr. Assad felt free to launch a chemical attack precisely because Mr. Trump’s administration had given him a green light.Russia, critics added, did not constrain Mr. Assad because it has had a blank check from an overly friendly Trump administration. And Mr. Trump’s efforts to bar Syrian refugees from the United States, they said, sent a signal that he did not care about them.
An injured child being treated after the strike. 

“President Trump seems not to have thought through any of this, or have any kind of broader strategy, but rather to have launched a military strike based on a sudden, emotional decision,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote in an article for The Huffington Post on Saturday.
Mr. Assad is not the only leader testing Mr. Trump. North Korea has test-launched missile after missile in recent weeks, almost as if trying to get Mr. Trump’s attention.
So far, he has been measured in his response, urging President Xi Jinping of China during his visit at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to do more to rein in North Korea. But national security aides have also prepared options for Mr. Trump if China does not take a more assertive stance, including reintroducing nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Mr. Trump’s action in Syria was welcomed by many traditional American allies who had fretted over Mr. Obama’s reluctance to take a greater leadership role in the Middle East, and feared that Mr. Trump would withdraw even more.
After the missile strike, Israeli news outlets were filled with headlines like “The Americans Are Back,” and European leaders expressed relief both that he had taken action and that he had not gone too far.
“We have learned that Trump is not so isolationist as many Europeans feared he would be — he appears to care about victims of a gas attack in Syria,” said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform in London. “We have learned that he understands that U.S. influence had suffered from the perception — which grew under Obama — that it was a power weakened by its reluctance to use force.”
That touches on another animating factor as Mr. Trump deals with foreign challenges — doing the opposite of whatever Mr. Obama did. Mr. Trump’s first instinct after the Syrian chemical attack was to blame Mr. Obama for not enforcing his red line, never mind that Mr. Trump had urged him not to at the time. Even as he announced the missile strike on Thursday night, Mr. Trump asserted that his predecessor’s handling of Syria had “failed very dramatically.”
Intentionally or not, though, Mr. Trump adopted language similar to that used by Mr. Obama and many other presidents in defining American priorities. While in the past Mr. Trump said the United States did not have a national interest in Syria, last week he said instability there was “threatening the United States and its allies.”
He also said that “America stands for justice,” effectively espousing a responsibility to act in cases of human rights abuses, as other presidents have at times.
Until now, Mr. Trump has largely eschewed such language. Just three days earlier, he had hosted Egypt’s authoritarian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and made no public mention of the thousands of people the Cairo government has imprisoned in a political crackdown.
“What is striking to me is a subtle yet clear shift away from the rhetoric of pure American self-interest narrowly defined, as espoused by candidate Donald Trump,” said Robert Danin, a former Middle East negotiator who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations. “What has emerged is a new language of American leadership in the world that we have not heard before from President Trump.”
Mr. Grant and others noted that the strike, coming as Mr. Trump shared a meal with Mr. Xi, could resonate in Asia as well, leaving North Korea to wonder whether the president might resort to force to stop its development of ballistic missiles.
But Ms. Hicks said Mr. Trump’s flexibility — or unpredictability — was itself “extremely risky.” If other countries cannot accurately predict what an American president will do, she said, they may act precipitously, citing the example of China’s extending its maritime claims in the South China Sea.
“Imagine if Donald Trump then took exception in ways they didn’t anticipate and major wars ensued,” she said. “Bright lines, derived from clear interests and enforced well, are generally best, and I don’t think Donald Trump likes to be constrained by bright lines.”

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