The 24-year-old ate only rice and chillies in order to save money to help her ill brother.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/34nQRai
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Suzi Taylor: Australia reality TV star 'extorted' Tinder date
Suzi Taylor arranged to meet the man before assaulting him and stealing money, police say.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/34huqmX
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/34huqmX
China rolls out 'one of the world's largest' 5G networks
By the end of the year, China's will be one of the world's largest 5G deployments, state media said.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2pjRYZH
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2pjRYZH
All you need is mud: Japan’s new spin on rugby
If you sign up for tambo rugby in Japan, playing dirty isn’t a choice - it’s a promise.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/336tBgH
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/336tBgH
18 Shades of Black: The Indian women using fashion to challenge tradition
The 18 Shades of Black campaign was inspired by the reaction to women gaining entry to a holy shrine.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BYSizt
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BYSizt
Why Chinese farmers have crossed border into Russia's Far East
When farms in Russia's Far East collapsed with the old Soviet Union, Chinese firms saw an opportunity.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WALO3A
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WALO3A
Quiz of the week: Films Prince loved... and other posers
Have you been paying attention to what's been going on during the past seven days?
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N6YFHi
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N6YFHi
Trump switches permanent residence from New York to Florida
He said he had been "treated very badly" by local politicians - prompting one to reply: "Good riddance".
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N7aNsa
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N7aNsa
‘Walmart Feels Like Home Now’ for These Fire Evacuees
By SARAH MERVOSH from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2N2MNX1
They Wanted River Views They Could Afford. Which Home Did They Choose?
By JOYCE COHEN from NYT Real Estate https://nyti.ms/2Ny3San
ISIS Names New Leader and Confirms al-Baghdadi’s Death
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and ERIC SCHMITT from NYT World https://nyti.ms/2Ny3RDl
Paula White, Trump’s Personal Pastor, Joins the White House
By JEREMY W. PETERS and MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2CcVx6R
White House Aide Confirms He Saw Signs of a Quid Pro Quo on Ukraine
By NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2Ny3Q2f
The Trump Impeachment Inquiry: What Happened Today
By NOAH WEILAND from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/36oeyRu
California Fires Latest Updates: Homes Burn in San Bernardino
By THE NEW YORK TIMES from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2PEIyCD
New world news from Time: Leaked U.N. Report Shows Botched Investigation Into Sexual Abuse Accusations Against Peacekeepers
(DAKAR, Senegal) — The United Nations botched its investigation into accusations of sexual abuse in Central African Republic, letting down victims, according to a draft report.
The report, written in 2017 but not yet made public, was leaked to The New Humanitarian and seen by The Associated Press.
A senior U.N. official disputed the findings in the draft report, which the U.N. said were not included in the final report.
An Associated Press investigative series in 2017 uncovered roughly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers around the world over a 12-year period.
The roughly 11,000 peacekeepers in Central African Republic had the most sexual misconduct allegations – 52- of any U.N. peacekeeping mission in 2016.
“The leaked review … gives a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse at how the U.N. system investigates claims of sexual abuse and exploitation by its own peacekeepers – and shows why it often fails the victims it is supposed to serve,” according to the New Humanitarian.
The failed investigation into the allegations in the Central African Republic cost the U.N. more than $480,000.
Inadequate storage ruined DNA samples that had been collected to connect victims to their alleged perpetrators, according to the report.
“Most were already rotten. It is therefore hardly surprising that positive results could not (be) obtained,” the report said of the DNA samples. Many of the samples were taken from March to May 2016, and then they were stored in Bangui for months and were not delivered to the Nairobi office for the investigation until April 2017.
The report noted the importance of the role of DNA evidence in linking a possible perpetrator to a victim. “It was noted that none of the DNA samples collected was deemed usable by labs retained for that purpose,” said the report.
The lack of action on the investigation left victims feeling abandoned and without any recourse for the sexual exploitation they say they experienced at the hands of the Burundi and Gabonese troops, according to the New Humanitarian who spoke with victims.
But Ben Swanson, the director of the U.N. investigations division in the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the U.N.’s internal watchdog known as OIOS, said OIOS “did all of the DNA swabbing in Dekoa, when and where it was relevant, and we also followed up with missions to Gabon and Burundi to swab soldiers identified as fathers.”
In December 2016, the U.N. announced that OIOS had completed an internal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against Burundian and Gabonese peacekeepers deployed in Dekoa in Kemo prefecture, Central African Republic.
OIOS interviewed 139 people, investigated their accounts and identified 16 possible perpetrators from Gabon and 25 from Burundi through photos and corroborating evidence, the U.N. said. Of the 139 victims, 25 were minors who asserted that they were sexually assaulted and eight paternity claims were filed, the U.N. said.
“We took swabs from around 20 victims and their children,” Swanson said, and the laboratory used to do the DNA testing was unable to extract any DNA samples from two or three of the swabs which may have been the result of operator error, poor storage techniques or the laboratory.
“Because the victims were adamant as to the identity of the fathers and we didn’t want to miss any evidential opportunities we repeated the entire exercise,” Swanson said.
“I can tell you that the lab was able to say ‘with a high degree of confidence’ that the soldiers identified were not the fathers of the children they were alleged to be,” he said.
The U.N. relies on the country contributing peacekeepers to deal with allegations of misconduct and to determine possible punishments. According to the report, Burundi investigators who went to conduct interviews in 2016 did not have the necessary skills and experience. The interviews seemed to look to discredit witnesses, it said, and interpreters also lacked the needed skills.
The U.N. has vowed to end impunity for sexual misconduct and to work with countries supplying peacekeepers to do more to combat the abuses.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has taken strides to improve the world body’s response to sexual abuse and exploitation, appointing the U.N.’s first-ever victims’ rights advocate, banning alcohol and fraternization for troops, convening high-level meetings on sexual abuse and exploitation and establishing a trust fund for victims.
The U.N. received 259 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse last year, according to The New Humanitarian, a major increase from the two previous years.
New world news from Time: North Korea Says It Test-Fired a New ‘Super Large’ Multiple Rocket Launcher
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea confirmed Friday it conducted its third test-firing of a new “super-large” multiple rocket launcher that it says expands its ability to destroy enemy targets in surprise attacks, as it continues to expand its military capabilities while pressuring Washington over a standstill in nuclear negotiations.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency described the tests a day after the South Korean and Japanese militaries said they detected two projectiles launched from an area near the North Korean capital traveling more than 200 miles cross-country before landing in waters off the North’s eastern coast.
Experts say the North could continue to ramp up weapons demonstrations ahead of an end-of-year deadline set by leader Kim Jong Un for the U.S. to offer mutually acceptable terms to salvage a fragile diplomacy strained by disagreements over exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament steps.
Thursday’s launches followed statements of displeasure by top North Korean officials over the slow pace of nuclear negotiations with the United States and demands that the administration of President Donald Trump ease crippling sanctions and pressure on their country.
KCNA said Kim expressed satisfaction over what North Korea described as a successful test of its new rocket artillery system, but it wasn’t clear whether the leader observed the launches on site. The North previously tested the system in August and September. The latest test verified the “perfection” of the system’s continuous firing ability that allegedly allows it to “totally destroy” enemy targets with “super power,” the agency said.
Earlier this month, the North test-fired an underwater-launched ballistic missile for the first time in three years. The North has also tested new short-range ballistic missile and rocket artillery systems in recent months in what experts saw as an effort to use the standstill in talks to advance its military capabilities while increasing its bargaining power.
Negotiations have faltered after the collapse of a February summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, where the U.S. rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for piecemeal progress toward partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.
The North responded with intensified testing activity while Kim said he would “wait with patience until the end of the year for the United States to come up with a courageous decision.”
Washington and Pyongyang resumed working-level discussion in Sweden earlier this month, but the meeting broke down amid acrimony with the North Koreans calling the talks “sickening” and accusing the Americans of maintaining an “old stance and attitude.”
Trump, Lifelong New Yorker, Declares Himself a Resident of Florida
By MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2PxPPEl
The African Americans discovering Ghana
Ghana has declared 2019 the 'year of return' and is encouraging the African diaspora to visit the country, but why are some deciding to make it their new home?
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/336ridg
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/336ridg
Climate change 'making mountaineering riskier'
Thinning ice and snow cover is leading to more rock-falls and landslides.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2PEqgBt
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2PEqgBt
New world news from Time: Hundreds of Koalas Feared Dead in Australian Wildfires
(CANBERRA, Australia) — Conservationists fear hundreds of koalas have perished in wildfires that have razed prime habitat on Australia’s east coast.
Port Macquarie Koala Hospital President Sue Ashton said she hoped wildlife carers would be allowed to begin their search of the fire zone for survivors on Thursday. The fire was started by a lightning strike on Friday in a forest in New South Wales state, 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Sydney, and has since burnt 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres).
Two-thirds of that area was koala habitat, Ashton said.
“If we look at a 50% survival rate, that’s around about 350 koalas and that’s absolutely devastating,” Ashton said of the death toll. “We’re hoping it’s not as bad as that, but because of the intensity of the fire and the way koalas behave during fire, we’re not holding out too much hope,” she added.
Koalas climb high into trees during wildfires and survive if the fire front passes quickly below them.
The koala colony was particularly heathy and genetically diverse, Ashton said. Koalas prefer coastal forests, which are being cleared for suburban expansion. Increasingly isolated koala colonies have become inbred and diseased.
Australia’s wildfire season has made a particularly early and devastating start in the southern hemisphere spring due to above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall that has left much of the east coast in drought.
POWERFUL: Hungary's President Posts Photo to Social Media of Nick Vujicic and Himself Praying
The president of Hungary posted a powerful image of himself kneeling to pray with evangelist Nick Vujicic.
from CBNNews.com http://bit.ly/334Vndp
from CBNNews.com http://bit.ly/334Vndp
Brazil wildfires: Blaze advances across Pantanal wetlands
The area is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, and a popular tourist destination.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WFUdmp
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WFUdmp
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Nationals Win Their First World Series With One Last Rally
By DAVID WALDSTEIN and BENJAMIN HOFFMAN from NYT Sports https://nyti.ms/33417Eb
New world news from Time: Third Strong Earthquake This Month Jolts the Southern Philippines
(DAVAO, Philippines) — The third strong earthquake this month jolted the southern Philippines on Thursday morning, further damaging structures already weakened by the earlier shaking.
In the city of Kidapawan, a hotel damaged in the earlier earthquakes further buckled and precariously leaned onto an adjacent hospital that had been emptied of people because it was damaged. Six staffers who were inside Eva’s Hotel managed to run out safely, Mayor Joseph Evangelista said.
Both buildings were cordoned off as they may collapse completely anytime.
Thursday’s 6.5 magnitude quake was centered 10 kilometers deep (6 miles) near Kisante town, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
On Tuesday, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake nearby triggered landslides and caused other damage. At least eight people died, two are missing, 395 were injured and more than 2,700 houses and buildings, including schools and hospitals, were damaged, according to the Office of Civil Defense.
In the same region on Oct. 16, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake killed at least seven people, injured more than 200 and destroyed or damaged more than 7,000 buildings.
The Philippines has frequent seismic activity. The archipelago lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.
Karachi Biennale: Price of speaking out against police killings
Artist Adeela Suleman was inspired by the death of one young man. The authorities felt differently.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/324p4dc
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/324p4dc
Essex lorry deaths: The deadly people smuggling trail leading to France
France is seen as a bottleneck in the smugglers' network and a springboard to London.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2PwvQWA
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2PwvQWA
Why US teachers have been walking out of schools nationwide
Demands for better pay and smaller class sizes have caused the biggest US strike wave in decades.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N3DENT
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N3DENT
Brazil oil spill: Where has it come from?
Oil has washed up on 200 beaches but the cause of the spill is still unknown.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BYVnjc
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BYVnjc
Nigeria's border crisis fuelled by rice
Nigeria has closed its borders bringing checkpoints to a standstill and affecting West African trade.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N3LrLM
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2N3LrLM
John Bolton Is Summoned to Testify in Trump Impeachment Inquiry
By NICHOLAS FANDOS and ADAM GOLDMAN from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/34claAk
Russia Tests New Disinformation Tactics in Africa to Expand Influence
By DAVEY ALBA and SHEERA FRENKEL from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2N3BNIV
Foie Gras, Served in 1,000 Restaurants in New York City, Is Banned
By JEFFERY C. MAYS and AMELIA NIERENBERG from NYT New York https://nyti.ms/2Pu7c97
Late Night Pokes Holes in Fox News’ Attempts to Discredit Decorated Soldier
By TRISH BENDIX from NYT Arts https://nyti.ms/333WGcn
White House Finds Loophole in Search for Homeland Security Secretary
By ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/326rl7X
Jho Low: US to recover $700m from 1MDB financier
High-end real estate and a luxury hotel will be seized as part of the deal struck with financier Jho Low.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BZA9l8
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BZA9l8
Fox News Breaking News Alert
Fox News Breaking News Alert
Washington Nationals top Houston Astros in Game 7 to claim World Series title
10/30/19 8:53 PM
Washington Nationals top Houston Astros in Game 7 to claim World Series title
10/30/19 8:53 PM
CIA-backed Afghan troops 'committed war crimes': report
Human Rights Watch reports that Afghan forces committed "extrajudicial killings" and other abuses.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2NpFiIM
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2NpFiIM
India formally divides Jammu and Kashmir state
It's part of a controversial move to tighten the Indian government's control of the region.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/34hN7XM
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/34hN7XM
Shuri Castle: Fire engulfs world heritage site in Japan
Shuri Castle, in Okinawa, was built 500 years ago in the Ryukyu Dynasty and is a World Heritage Site.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Wrk0i1
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Wrk0i1
Breastfeeding suites increasing in popularity in the US
Private breastfeeding spaces are increasing in the US, including in train stations and supermarkets.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/34fQQ7Z
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/34fQQ7Z
Boeing 'doesn't understand our grief'
Zipporah Kuria's father Joseph Waithaka was one of 157 people killed when a Boeing 737 Max crashed in March.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/323ONCu
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/323ONCu
Liberia's child soldiers: 'I know I killed people'
Miatta says she was forced to fight when she was 14 and can't remember how many people she's killed.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2oysuY7
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2oysuY7
Trump judicial nominee breaks down during Senate hearing
Lawrence VanDyke broke down when asked whether he was biased against LGBT people.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32Z9wJa
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32Z9wJa
Comedian Kevin Hart shares emotional video after crash
The US comedian shared the video of his recovery after a severe car accident in September.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2q8zMSA
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2q8zMSA
Greta Thunberg rejects Nordic Council environmental award
She turned down the prize money and said "the climate movement does not need any more awards".
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BVpYOx
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BVpYOx
'Scary' glass bridges shut in Chinese province
The glass attractions were built to attract tourists - but extra checks are now being carried out.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2q0oPmi
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2q0oPmi
Australian wildfire: Hundreds of koalas feared dead
"It's a national tragedy," says one worker from a koala hospital in New South Wales, Australia.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2JsW60f
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2JsW60f
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Australia's 'backpacker tax' ruled invalid by court
Working holiday-makers from eight nations, including the UK, may be owed compensation.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BT2dqe
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BT2dqe
Turkey-Syria: 'The heart of my family has died'
Some refugees say they are being deported from Turkey back to Syria, which Ankara denies.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32ZAiRF
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32ZAiRF
Trump impeachment: Democrats unveil resolution for next steps
A resolution lays out how the House will take the inquiry against the president into a public phase.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WqfFLL
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WqfFLL
California Fires Fanned by Strong Winds: Live Updates
By JULIE TURKEWITZ from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2BQsG87
WhatsApp sues Israeli firm over phone hacking claims
Facebook-owned WhatsApp alleges NSO Group was behind a cyber-attack on phones and messages.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2JvDZH6
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2JvDZH6
Meghan Murphy: Canadian feminist's trans talk sparks uproar
Hundreds protested as Meghan Murphy gave a controversial talk at a public library in Toronto.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Wp8XFX
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Wp8XFX
US women upset by random baby congratulation cards
Outcry after women receive gift cards disguised as pregnancy announcements
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2pYIRxn
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2pYIRxn
Rugby World Cup: England fined for crossing halfway line before New Zealand match
England are fined a four-figure sum for crossing the halfway line as they lined up in a V formation to face the haka before their Rugby World Cup semi-final match against New Zealand.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2MUWGG2
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2MUWGG2
Peugeot owner 'in merger talks with Fiat Chrysler'
Reports suggest the carmakers are exploring a tie-up to create a near $50bn US-Europe auto giant.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/31WEpwt
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/31WEpwt
The dangers – physical and psychological – of gender reveal parties
A woman's death at a gender reveal party has prompted wider questions about the trend.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2PysHp9
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2PysHp9
Why India wants to track WhatsApp messages
The government is trying to monitor and intercept social media messages to combat fake news.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/31UjgCZ
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/31UjgCZ
Why motorbike apps are scrambling for Africa
Venture capitalists are getting excited by the opportunities that new transport apps are providing.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2JvMRwa
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2JvMRwa
Readers Respond to the Pete Wells Review of Peter Luger: ‘Finally’
By AIDAN GARDINER from NYT Reader Center https://nyti.ms/36qMYDg
Deadly Earthquake Strikes Southern Philippine Island
By JASON GUTIERREZ and GERRY MULLANY from NYT World https://nyti.ms/2WqWWj6
A Lineman Became a Doctor, but Dementia Made Him Retire. He’s Only 42.
By MICHAEL POWELL from NYT Sports https://nyti.ms/34bMjn3
White House Ukraine Expert Sought to Correct Transcript of Trump Call
By JULIAN E. BARNES, NICHOLAS FANDOS and DANNY HAKIM from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/31UEQaE
I’m the Comedian Who Just Confronted Harvey Weinstein. Here’s Why I Spoke Up.
By KELLY BACHMAN from NYT Opinion https://nyti.ms/2q1HjCU
New world news from Time: A Nepalese Man Has Shattered the Record for Scaling the World’s Highest Peaks
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A Nepalese man shattered the previous mountaineering record for successfully climbing the world’s 14 highest peaks, completing the feat in 189 days.
Nirmal Purja scaled the 8,027-meter (26,340-foot) Mount Shishapangma in China on Tuesday, which was the last of the 14 peaks that are more than 8,000 meters (26,240 feet) in height.
The previous record for climbing the 14 peaks was seven years, 10 months and six days. It was set by South Korean climber Kim Chang-ho in 2013.
Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks in Kathmandu, which equipped the expedition, said the 36-year-old Purja was in good health and safely descending from the summit.
Climbing experts called the record a momentous achievement in mountaineering history.
“It is a great achievement for mountaineering and mountaineers and a milestone in the history of climbing,” said Ang Tshering, who previously headed the Nepal Mountaineering Association.
A former soldier in the British army, Purja began his mission on April 23 with a climb of Mount Annpurna in Nepal.
In Nepal, he climbed Mount Annapurna on April 23, Mount Dhaulagiri on May 12, Mount Kanchenjunga on May 15, Mount Everest on May 22, Mount Lhotse on May 22, Mount Makalu on May 24 and Mount Manaslu on Sept. 27.
In Pakistan, he climbed Mount Nanga Parbat on July 3, Mount Gasherbrum 1 on July 15, Mount Gasherbrum 2 on July 18, Mount K2 on July 24 and Mount Broad Peak on July 26.
In China, he scaled Mount Cho You on Sept. 23 and Mount Shishapangma on Oct. 29.
He struggled to get permission from the Chinese government for his last climb and was allowed only after getting help from the Nepalese government.
Purja’s photo of a long line of climbers just below the Mount Everest summit was widely circulated on social media in May. It raised concerns about overcrowding and the safety of climbers spending so much time on the highest point of the earth for hours stuck on a traffic jam.
Purja joined the British army in 2003 and quit earlier this year to begin his mission of climbing all the highest peaks in record time.
Attacks and celebration as Lebanon PM says he will quit
Supporters of Shia parties attacked protesters and then PM Saad Hariri announced he would resign.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/334oUEc
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/334oUEc
Michelle Obama on white flight: 'Y'all were running from us'
The former US first lady says race and lack of understanding of migrants still divides the US and world.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/36hhEXl
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/36hhEXl
Monday, October 28, 2019
'Game changing' tuberculosis vaccine a step closer
TB is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and kills 1.5 million people each year.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BSVA7C
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BSVA7C
Read the Letter Facebook Employees Sent to Mark Zuckerberg About Political Ads
By THE NEW YORK TIMES from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2Nkvyzd
Why Did It Feel So Good to See Trump Booed?
By JENNIFER WEINER from NYT Opinion https://nyti.ms/32VJcQ4
Early to Bed, Early to Rise Makes Me Exhausted, Depressed and Sick
By VANESSA BARBARA from NYT Opinion https://nyti.ms/2JuoyyM
The Secret Ingredient That Improves Meat Every Time
By J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT from NYT Food https://nyti.ms/32W1cd8
General Motors Sides With Trump in Emissions Fight, Splitting the Industry
By HIROKO TABUCHI from NYT Climate https://nyti.ms/2JukUF7
Al-Baghdadi Is Dead. The Story Doesn’t End Here.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN from NYT Opinion https://nyti.ms/2BRtk5m
Hong Kong's leader issues fresh recession warning
Ms Lam says the economy is likely to have contracted as long-running protests continue.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32Tivve
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32Tivve
New world news from Time: Facebook Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar. A New Report on Hate Speech Shows It Hasn’t Learned Enough Since Then
Hate speech targeted at minorities in the northeastern Indian state of Assam is spreading almost unabated through Facebook at the same time as the Indian government is stripping nearly 2 million people there of citizenship, according to a new report released Tuesday.
Posts targeting religious and ethnic minorities in Assam have been seen more than 5.4 million times, according to the global online advocacy group Avaaz, calling into question the success of the approach taken by Facebook since it was used to spread hate speech during the 2017 Rohingya genocide.
“I’m not sure what lessons Facebook has learned from the Rohingya crisis,” Alaphia Zoyab, a senior campaigner at Avaaz who led the team that wrote the report, tells TIME. “If they’re waiting for actual violence, that’s too late. They need to heed the warnings now.”
In August this year, the Indian government published its final list of citizens of Assam, leaving 1.9 million people off. The ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sold the exercise as a means of rooting out illegal immigrants from bordering Bangladesh. But rights groups said it risked making millions stateless and inflaming Hindu-Muslim tensions in the region.
The situation in Assam has drawn comparisons to the Buddhist extremist campaign against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar which peaked in 2017, forcing more than 700,000 to flee their homes. In Hindu-majority India, Muslims have faced a surge in attacks since the BJP took power. In Assam, some 1.9 million people, many believed to be from the Bengali-speaking minority, are threatened with statelessness as a result of government measures aimed at removing “infiltrators” from the country. “We are very worried about something like the Rohingya crisis playing out again,” Human Rights Watch told TIME in August.
Bengali Muslims in particular seem to be the targets of hate speech on Facebook, according to Avaaz, which found posts on the site calling them “parasites,” “rats” and “rapists,” and calling for them to be exterminated.
After the Rohingya genocide, Facebook was criticized for not employing any Burmese-speakers able to detect and remove hate speech. Facebook said in 2018 it had not “done enough” to prevent the genocide, and had since “invested heavily in people, technology and partners to address the abuse of Facebook in Myanmar.”
But the Avaaz report, which focuses on hate speech in the Assamese language, calls into question whether Facebook’s systems to detect hate speech in languages other than English is working. “Facebook is relying too heavily on artificial intelligence to detect hate speech,” Zoyab tells TIME. “Our research shows that reliance is based on a false premise, because it assumes people are flagging hate-speech, which then teaches its artificial intelligence systems. That’s not happening.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to questions from TIME inquiring how many Assamese speakers it employs as part of its 15,000-strong team of content moderators.
Avaaz said it reported 213 of the “clearest examples of hate speech” to Facebook, but said that the site had removed only 96 of them for breaching its community standards. The report details one case where one individual inciting hatred against Bengali Muslims had his page removed by Facebook seven times, only to set up new accounts each time and continue posting.
“When we flagged the hate speech in Assam online using Facebook’s online reporting tools, Facebook sent us back automated messages saying that this does not breach their community standards,” Zoyab says. “Facebook keeps saying it has a zero tolerance policy toward hate speech, but Assam seems to prove that it’s a one hundred percent failure.”
“When you become stateless, you essentially lose your right to have rights,” Zoyab says. “Overall we just find Facebook is asleep at the wheel here in protecting the world’s most vulnerable people.”
New top story from Time: Facebook Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar. A New Report on Hate Speech Shows It Hasn’t Learned Enough Since Then
Hate speech targeted at minorities in the northeastern Indian state of Assam is spreading almost unabated through Facebook at the same time as the Indian government is stripping nearly 2 million people there of citizenship, according to a new report released Tuesday.
Posts targeting religious and ethnic minorities in Assam have been seen more than 5.4 million times, according to the global online advocacy group Avaaz, calling into question the success of the approach taken by Facebook since it was used to spread hate speech during the 2017 Rohingya genocide.
“I’m not sure what lessons Facebook has learned from the Rohingya crisis,” Alaphia Zoyab, a senior campaigner at Avaaz who led the team that wrote the report, tells TIME. “If they’re waiting for actual violence, that’s too late. They need to heed the warnings now.”
In August this year, the Indian government published its final list of citizens of Assam, leaving 1.9 million people off. The ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sold the exercise as a means of rooting out illegal immigrants from bordering Bangladesh. But rights groups said it risked making millions stateless and inflaming Hindu-Muslim tensions in the region.
The situation in Assam has drawn comparisons to the Buddhist extremist campaign against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar which peaked in 2017, forcing more than 700,000 to flee their homes. In Hindu-majority India, Muslims have faced a surge in attacks since the BJP took power. In Assam, some 1.9 million people, many believed to be from the Bengali-speaking minority, are threatened with statelessness as a result of government measures aimed at removing “infiltrators” from the country. “We are very worried about something like the Rohingya crisis playing out again,” Human Rights Watch told TIME in August.
Bengali Muslims in particular seem to be the targets of hate speech on Facebook, according to Avaaz, which found posts on the site calling them “parasites,” “rats” and “rapists,” and calling for them to be exterminated.
After the Rohingya genocide, Facebook was criticized for not employing any Burmese-speakers able to detect and remove hate speech. Facebook said in 2018 it had not “done enough” to prevent the genocide, and had since “invested heavily in people, technology and partners to address the abuse of Facebook in Myanmar.”
But the Avaaz report, which focuses on hate speech in the Assamese language, calls into question whether Facebook’s systems to detect hate speech in languages other than English is working. “Facebook is relying too heavily on artificial intelligence to detect hate speech,” Zoyab tells TIME. “Our research shows that reliance is based on a false premise, because it assumes people are flagging hate-speech, which then teaches its artificial intelligence systems. That’s not happening.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to questions from TIME inquiring how many Assamese speakers it employs as part of its 15,000-strong team of content moderators.
Avaaz said it reported 213 of the “clearest examples of hate speech” to Facebook, but said that the site had removed only 96 of them for breaching its community standards. The report details one case where one individual inciting hatred against Bengali Muslims had his page removed by Facebook seven times, only to set up new accounts each time and continue posting.
“When we flagged the hate speech in Assam online using Facebook’s online reporting tools, Facebook sent us back automated messages saying that this does not breach their community standards,” Zoyab says. “Facebook keeps saying it has a zero tolerance policy toward hate speech, but Assam seems to prove that it’s a one hundred percent failure.”
“When you become stateless, you essentially lose your right to have rights,” Zoyab says. “Overall we just find Facebook is asleep at the wheel here in protecting the world’s most vulnerable people.”
Army Officer Who Heard Trump’s Ukraine Call Reported Concerns
By DANNY HAKIM from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2JwgzRT
New world news from Time: Fresh Protests and Looting Rock Chile Despite New Cabinet Appointments
(SANTIAGO, Chile) — Fresh protests and attacks on businesses erupted in Chile Monday despite President Sebastián Piñera’s replacement of eight key Cabinet ministers with more centrist figures and his attempts to assure the country he has heard calls for greater equality and improved social services.
Thousands of protesters crowded again into central Santiago, and one group set fire to a building that houses a fast-food restaurant and stores. Firefighters were battling the blaze.
Other looters attacked a pharmacy, and there was an attempt to set a subway station on fire. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people attempted to get home from work on free buses sent to replace trains out of service due to the burning of dozens of stations over the last week in Latin America’s most modern public transportation system.
By Monday evening the streets were mostly empty, with piles of detritus burning on street corners, and some residents and business owners trying to extinguish blazes with handheld fire extinguishers. At least a couple dozen glass storefronts were smashed and graffiti cursing Piñera and calling for revolution was sprayed on virtually every building.
Piñera replaced the heads of the interior, treasury, economy, labor and four other ministries with generally younger officials seen as more centrist and accessible.
“Chile has changed and the government must change,” Chile’s president said.
However, his government announced no policies Monday aimed at addressing 10 days of protests over deficient social services and the high cost of living in one of Latin America’s most prosperous and modern nations.
“A new Cabinet isn’t enough, we need real changes in health care, education, pensions,” said Omar Soto, 34, who runs a cellphone shop.
Protesters almost uniformly say they are frustrated with the so-called neoliberal model that has left Chile with region-topping prosperity along with a widely criticized private pension system, and two-tiered health and education systems that blend the public and private, with better results for the minority who can afford to pay.
Many Chileans talk of waiting a year for an appointment with a specialist, or families receiving calls to finally set up appointments for loved ones who died months earlier. Hundreds of thousands are hobbled by educational loans that can follow them into their 40s and even 50s.
“Last Friday we had a peaceful protest and being peaceful they didn’t listen to us,” said Sebastián, a 25-year-old welder who declined to give his last name saying he fear authorities. “You have to get their attention somehow.”
Adding to protesters’ anger was a military crackdown on demonstrations and looting that has left 1,132 hurt, with dozens partially blinded by police or soldiers’ gunshot pellets, according to the National Human Rights Institute and the Chilean College of Medicine. The death toll from the 10 days of violence stands at 20, although it is unclear how many were killed by police and how many by looters.
The U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, was sending a delegation to the country Monday to investigate the situation. Amnesty International was also sending a team.
From afar, Chile has been a regional success story — under democratically elected presidents on the left and right, a free-market consensus has driven growth up, poverty down and won Chile the region’s highest score on the United Nations Human Development Index, a blend of life expectancy, education and national income per capita. In 2010, Chile became the second Latin member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, after Mexico.
Meanwhile, a 2017 UN report found that the richest 1% of the population earns 33 percent of the nation’s wealth. That helps make Chile the most unequal country in the OECD, slightly worse than Mexico. Piñera himself is a billionaire, one of the country’s richest men.
Democrats Move Toward Bringing Impeachment Inquiry Public
By NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2C2xo2N
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Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads
By MIKE ISAAC from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2JxKb1g
Queensland shark attack: Two men injured at tourist spot
The men suffered leg and foot wounds in the attack at a popular tourist region in Queensland.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BPOa55
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BPOa55
Indian toddler stuck in borewell dies despite major rescue efforts
Two-year old Sujith fell into the well on Friday and was found dead despite a major rescue effort.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/348sdKp
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/348sdKp
Former Boston College Student Charged in Boyfriend’s Suicide
By KATE TAYLOR from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/2MVsWJe
REM look back on Monster: 'We did not want to become the dancing monkey'
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Baghdadi death: What now for IS?
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from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32XgFtw
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Internet 'father' Vint Cerf on future challenges ahead for the web
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Ethiopia's 900-year-old Shonke village on a mountain
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from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WlZXBg
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2WlZXBg
A thousand needle workers volunteer to finish dead woman's quilt
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from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/31VAIqB
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What prohibition's failure means for the legalisation of cannabis
Banning alcohol inadvertently created one of the most successful black markets in the world.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/31GikC2
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The race to build a flying electric taxi
More than a hundred companies are working on electric aircraft designed to zip in and out of cities.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32Cusp1
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32Cusp1
Sunday, October 27, 2019
New world news from Time: Stunning Wealth Gaps and Poor Services are Behind Chile’s Massive Protests
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — It’s not about a 4-cent hike in subway prices.
The decision to add 30 pesos to the cost of a ticket on Latin America’s most modern public transportation system this month drew little attention inside or outside Chile, at first. People quietly fumed. A week later, high-school students launched four days of turnstile-jumping protests. Crowds of angry youths built up inside metro stations.
With no warning, on the afternoon of Oct. 18, they set fire to stations, then trains. Then grocery, department stores and pharmacies went up in flames. Hundreds of thousands of people were left stranded at home or on the streets without public transport. But instead of blaming the young protesters, Chileans from almost all walks of life used social media to call for protests against years of government mismanagement.
Santiago exploded into a week of massive street protests that culminated Friday with more than a million people in the heart of the capital and other major cities — the largest demonstrations ever in the country, according to multiple historians.
With the world wondering how modern, prosperous Chile had erupted into chaos, a protest concert drew 15,000 on Sunday to green and shady O’Higgins Park in central Santiago. There, Chileans said the rise in the cost of a metro ticket had been merely the spark that set off years of frustration with the dark underbelly of their country’s long drive to be the most market-driven economy in Latin America.
“What we Chileans want is equal treatment for all, that the cake be divided up fairly,” said Mario Gonzalez, 34, who runs a t-shirt printing business. “We don’t want anything for free; we just want to pay a fair price.”
Young, old, poor and middle-class, protesters said they were united by frustration with the so-called neoliberal model that has left Chile with region-topping prosperity along with a widely criticized private pension system, and two-tiered health and education systems that blend the public and private, with better results for the minority who can afford to pay, protesters said.
Many Chileans talk of waiting a year for an appointment with a specialist, or families receiving calls to finally set up appointments for loved ones who died months earlier. Hundreds of thousands are hobbled by educational loans that can follow them into their 40s and even 50s.
“Countries with high levels of inequality such as Chile are like recovering alcoholics. They can be well for many years, but they shouldn’t forget they have a problem,” said Patricio Navia, an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. “Inequality is a threat to Chile’s stability.”
Alexis Moreira Arenas, 37, and his wife Stephanie Carrasco, 36, are comfortably in the middle class but he pays some 10 percent of his salary to a privately run pension system that generates steady profits for fund managers but an average pension around $300 a month, roughly a third of what a retired person needs to live. She is still paying off $110 a month in college loans, about 10 percent of their income. Another 30 percent goes to private preschool for their 2-year-old son.
“It’s a series of problems that all come together; public transport, education, health, because the health system here works really badly,” Moreria said. “Above all, it’s a question of inequality.”
Protesters in O’Higgins Park said President Sebastián Piñera’s firing of his Cabinet Saturday would do nothing to calm the streets. Almost uniformly, they said they would continue protesting until they saw fundamental changes in Chile, starting with the replacement of the 1980 constitution, written under military dictator Augusto Pinochet, that creates the legal basis of Chile’s market-driven system. Already, there were calls Sunday evening on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp for protests every day of the coming week.
“The whole constitution makes me angry,” said Alan Vicencio, a 25-year-old call-center worker. “The constitution allowed the privatization of every aspect of our lives and it’s being doing it for more than 30 years.”
From afar, Chile has been a regional success story — under democratically elected presidents on the left and right, a free-market consensus has driven growth up, poverty down and won Chile the region’s highest score on the United Nations Human Development Index, a blend of life expectancy, education and national income per capita.
In 2010, Chile became the second Latin member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, after Mexico. Next month, Piñera will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, followed by the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference in December.
Meanwhile, a 2017 UN report found that the richest 1% of the population earns 33 percent of the nation’s wealth. That helps make Chile the most unequal country in the OECD, slightly worse than Mexico. Piñera himself is a billionaire, one of the country’s richest men.
Roxana Pisarro, a 52-year-old kindergarten teacher, stood in O’Higgins Park holding a hand-letter sign reading, “I’m marching for my 76-year-old mother who works seven days a week because her miserable pension isn’t enough.”
Pisarro said her mother, a retired clothing-factory worker, bakes at home and sells empanadas and fried bread in their neighborhood on the outskirts of Santiago, often until 11 p.m., in order to support herself, her granddaughter and her great-grandson on a pension of $165 a month.
“Average people see this prosperous country, the star of Latin America, they see skyscrapers and four Maseratis sold every month, a luxury shopping district where they sell purses worth $4,000, and where are they compared to five years ago? They’re stuck,” said Marta Lagos, director of the Santiago-based polling firm Latinobarometro. “This 30 peso rise in metro fares was the straw that broke the camel’s back. They said ‘Not a step further. We’re tired of waiting.'”
Essex lorry deaths: Man due in court over 39 deaths
Maurice Robinson to appear at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court charged with 39 counts of manslaughter.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32SPK1Q
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/32SPK1Q
How Commandos Could Quickly Confirm They Got Their Target
By MICHAEL CROWLEY from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/36cq2r2
John Conyers Jr., Longest-Serving African-American in Congressional History, Dies at 90
By ADAM CLYMER from NYT Obituaries https://nyti.ms/2PmBZEz
Before Deadly Crashes, Boeing Pushed for Law That Undercut Oversight
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New world news from Time: Here’s How U.S. Forces Finally Tracked Down and Killed al-Baghdadi
For all the attention, invention and investment that the U.S. intelligence community devotes to spy satellites, communications intercepts, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence, the raid that killed ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was launched by the same old-fashioned tool that led to Osama bin Laden: human intelligence.
After years of trying in vain to get a real-time lock on al-Baghdadi’s location, the big break came not from space or from a strategically located eavesdropping post, but from the wife of an al-Baghdadi aide and one of the couriers he employed to avoid using mobile phones and computers that could have made him easier to track. U.S. officials said the two were captured in western Iraq.
Using names and locations that the wife and courier gave up, two U.S. officials said on Sunday, the CIA and Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence officers began recruiting agents along the routes that al-Baghdadi traveled in the desert astride the Syrian-Iraqi border. Officials began surveilling routes he used, places he stopped, and looking for patterns to his travel, including his brief stays in small villages such as the one where he died.
The U.S. Special Operations Command, based in Tampa, Florida, had standing plans for targeting al-Baghdadi and his small inner circle, said a third official. Some called for the use of drones, which the CIA and the military have employed in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, this official said. Others relied more heavily on inserting Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs on the ground, as the U.S. did in targeting al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
The official described the plans as “basic blueprints” and said they were rehearsed and updated constantly as ISIS lost its grip on cities such as Mosul, where the group’s leaders hid among thousands of civilians.
“I don’t think we could have done this without the help we got from the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, which continued after we began the troop pullout,” one of the officials said, quickly adding that Iraq military and intelligence officers “kicked the whole thing off.”
President Donald Trump gave approval for the operation, codenamed Kayla Mueller after an American woman taken hostage, raped repeatedly and murdered, to begin on Friday (5 p.m. EDT), the first two officials said, and the raid began at roughly midnight local time at the airfield in Erbil, Iraq with a mix of eight Apache attack and CH-47 Chinook helicopters carrying Delta Force special operators and at least one dog.
The attackers flew low to avoid detection for about 70 miles from Erbil to Barisha, a village just north of Idlib where al-Baghdadi, his bodyguards, and some of his children were spending the night.
As the attackers approached their landing zone outside the building that housed al-Baghdadi, which spies had described and which unmanned U.S. surveillance planes and satellites had photographed, the Apache helicopters and fixed-wing warplanes laid down a barrage of covering fire, the officials said, heavily damaging the compound.
Following standard procedure, the force first tried to persuade the inhabitants to leave the compound, but without success, then blew holes in the walls rather than using the doors or windows.
At some point, al-Baghdadi fled down a tunnel beneath the compound, with the U.S. forces in pursuit.
In announcing al-Baghdadi’s death, Trump has described him as “crying, whimpering, screaming” as he was trapped at the dead-end tunnel and detonated an explosive vest. None of the officials confirmed that account.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CNN that soldiers tried to persuade al-Baghdadi to give himself up. “We tried to call him out and asked him to surrender himself. He refused,” Esper said.
Instead, al-Baghdadi blew himself up along with three children he’d taken into the tunnel, the officials said.
The officials’ descriptions came on the heels of Trump’s own gory and detailed account of not only the raid, but the intelligence efforts leading up to it. Among other details, Trump said “two or three efforts” to capture al-Baghdadi had been called off in recent weeks because the ISIS leader changed his travel plans; that the raiders had seized “highly sensitive” material and information from the targeted compound; that they’d had the technology to test al-Baghdadi’s DNA quickly; and that the forces had spent about two hours in the compound. Trump also gave an accounting of the number of aircraft involved in the mission, and the amount of time al-Baghdadi had been in intelligence officials’ sites before the raid.
Samantha Vinograd, a former security official in the Obama administration, said on CNN on Sunday, “It’s really unprecedented when you think about how much detail he actually went into.”
“Immediately after a special operation like this, there’s increased risks of retaliatory attacks and risks to human sources on the ground. The level of detail that President Trump went into in that press conference increases the risk to sources that may still be on the ground,” she said.
Michael Downing, the former head of the Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau for the Los Angeles Police Department who has studied ISIS’ organizational structure, says there’s already a heightened risk of blowback from ISIS as a result of al-Baghdadi’s death. “Now is one of the most dangerous times,” Downing says. “When you injure an animal, that is when it is most dangerous.”
At his news conference, Trump defended his use of gory details in describing what he said were al-Baghdadi’s final moments. “I think it’s something that should be brought out so that his followers and all of these young kids that want to leave various countries, including the United States, they should see how he died,” Trump said. “He didn’t die a hero. He died a coward.”
Rescuers fight to save toddler stuck in well
Two-year old Sujith fell into the abandoned well on Friday and rescuers are racing against time.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Pq5Uf6
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Pq5Uf6
ISIS Leader al-Baghdadi Is Dead, Trump Says
By PETER BAKER, ERIC SCHMITT and HELENE COOPER from NYT U.S. https://nyti.ms/31Vc61b
My doctor flew off when cosmetic surgery went wrong
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Katie Hill: US congresswoman resigns amid affair allegations
Congresswoman Katie Hill denies allegations she had an affair with a Capitol Hill aide.
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Nigeria's 'torture houses' masquerading as Koranic schools
Parents find their children maltreated in what they thought were Islamic rehabilitation centres.
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from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/334fiJe
New world news from Time: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Is Dead. Where Does That Leave ISIS?
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the fugitive emir of ISIS, the man who transformed a breakaway al-Qaeda group into a transnational terrorist franchise that brutalized and killed civilians in more than a dozen countries and who threatened to rewrite the map of the Middle East by luring foreign recruits to wage jihad in Iraq and Syria, is dead.
So what happens to the terror organization that he painstakingly assembled?
In many ways, the group is already evolving. ISIS leadership ranks have proved resilient despite more than five years of war. The group has been quick to adapt to new circumstances. No longer capable of seizing and holding territory, the surviving foot soldiers have instead gone back to their guerrilla roots, carrying out ambushes, bombings and assassinations. And despite the loss of its territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has expanded its reach to include 14 separate affiliates in countries across Asia and Africa.
In the long-term, analysts say, what may be most significant about Saturday’s Special Operations commando raid is not al-Baghdadi’s decapitation from ISIS’ shadowy hierarchy but the ease with which he will be replaced. The group, like its predecessor organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq, routinely taps new commanders to fill the vacuum left by those who are assassinated. The replacements occur with such regularity that the U.S. Special Operations community jokingly refers to removing leaders as “mowing the grass.”
“Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death —welcome and important though it may be— is not a catastrophic blow to the quality of leadership in ISIS,” says Michael Nagata, who retired as Army Lieutenant General and strategy director from the National Counterterrorism Center in August.
Nagata, who served in the Middle East as a Special Operations commander in 2014 when the counter-ISIS campaign began, says ISIS now has a cadre of young battle-hardened leaders who are climbing toward the top echelons and establishing themselves in the terror group’s global network. “ISIS isn’t a crippled organization because Baghdadi’s gone,” he says. “The depth and breadth of ISIS leadership, in my judgment, is unprecedented for this type of terrorist group.”
Since the first days of U.S. involvement in the war against ISIS, Special Operations forces and intelligence agencies hunted and killed the group’s leaders one-by-one. But they’ve always regrouped.
“As we’ve seen over the last several years, the group also has a strategy to carry on operations into the next decade,” says Aki Peritz, a former CIA counterterrorism analyst and co-author of “Find, Fix, Finish: Inside the Counterterrorism Campaigns that Killed bin Laden and Devastated Al Qaeda.” “It’s good to take out the leader, but it’s not just a terrorist group —it’s an ideology as well; stamping out the idea of the Islamic State will prove to be much more difficult than one successful military/intelligence operation.”
“It’s good to take out the leader, but it’s not just a terrorist group—it’s an ideology as well.” After all, al-Qaeda endured after founder Osama bin Laden was killed in a 2011 Navy SEAL raid. And Al Qaeda in Iraq lived on as ISIS after its founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ,was killed in a 2006 U.S. airstrike.
U.S. counterterrorism officials expect ISIS to name a successor in the coming days or weeks. A likely candidate is al-Baghdadi’s defense chief, Iyad al-Obaidi. But regardless of who leads the Sunni extremist group, it is now a shadow of the organization that launched a lightning offensive in Iraq and Syria that resulted in the seizure of territory the size of Britain and raked in millions of dollars a day.
The seeds for resurgence, however, are there. According to a recent Defense Department Inspector General’s report, ISIS has between 14,000 and 18,000 members who’ve pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi. In addition, there are more than 30 detention camps that hold about 11,000 ISIS fighters, sympathizers and other associated detainees across northern Syria. Another camp for internally displaced persons known as al-Hol, in northeastern Syria, holds nearly 70,000 people, including thousands of ISIS family members. The U.S. military reported in February that “absent sustained pressure,” the terrorist group would re-emerge in Syria within six to 12 months.
Moreover, ISIS remains a worldwide threat because the group has a constellation of affiliates in places as far-flung as Nigeria and Pakistan, according to a report from the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. “ISIS’ global presence provides footholds from which to further metastasize, launch attacks, and gain resources to fund its resurgence in Iraq and Syria,” the report said, documenting recent plans for attacks on the West that emanated from affiliates in Libya, Somalia and the Philippines.
The death of militant leaders, however, frequently leads to fractures within terror organizations and new directions in strategy, says Norman T. Roule, a former senior CIA officer with experience in Middle East issues. “In the wake of Baghdadi’s death, ISIS groups abroad could go in a number of directions,” he says. “Some may decide to reconcile with al-Qaeda, some may decide to undertake revenge operations to demonstrate that ISIS remains potent. Some planned operations could be accelerated if the ISIS planners believe the intelligence found with Baghdadi might identify them.”
Colin P. Clarke, a fellow at the Soufan Center and author of “After the Caliphate: The Islamic State and the Future of the Terrorist Diaspora,” says there have already been signs of an “ISIS 2.0” emerging. “It’s unclear what Baghdadi’s death could do to exacerbate the changes underway,” he says. “Baghdadi was the face of the ISIS brand. He had a cult of personality.”
Born into a religiously devout lower-middle-class Sunni Muslim family in Iraq in 1971, Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim al-Badri, who years later adopted the nom de guerre al-Baghdadi, was an unexceptional, shy child, according to recent biographies based on interviews with those who knew him. He never excelled at religious scholarship but was talented at the recitation of Quranic verse. In college and graduate school, he studied the style and technique of reciting the Quran, and he wrote a master’s thesis on a medieval commentary on the subject.
Al-Baghdadi’s finishing school in radicalism was unwittingly provided by the U.S. In February 2004, after the invasion of Iraq, he was visiting a friend in Fallujah when U.S. Army intelligence officers burst in and arrested them both. Al-Baghdadi was taken to the notorious prison at Camp Bucca, which inadvertently came to serve as an incubator for Sunni jihadism, according to former camp officials. There he was a skilled networker, courting radical factions and building a reputation as a religious leader based on his Islamic studies.
These talents didn’t register on his captors, though, who judged al-Baghdadi to be a low-risk prisoner. Released at the end of 2004, he returned to the Iraqi capital, where he pursued a doctorate and joined a series of jihadi groups invigorated by the fall of Saddam Hussein and the U.S. occupation. In early 2006, he found his ultimate home in the Iraqi al-Qaeda offshoot led by Zarqawi, a former violent criminal from Jordan whom U.S. forces killed that June. Al-Baghdadi’s nominal religious qualifications and rigid dogmatism carried him quickly through the ranks, and in May 2010, after the U.S. killed the only two men above him, he emerged as the emir.
Along with his ambitious territorial goals in the Middle East, al-Baghdadi elaborated an apocalyptic vision of a final battle between the forces of radical Islam and the West. In a Ramadan sermon in mid-2014, he declared slavery the universal human condition: Muslim believers are indentured to Allah, while nonbelievers are the rightful property of Muslims. He also said the time of death for each man and woman is preordained, implying that all killings must be the will of Allah. This teaching paved the way for his chief spokesman to deliver the following message to ISIS supporters everywhere a few months later: “If you can kill a disbelieving American or European,” the spokesman said, “kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military.”
The bloodthirsty rhetoric, often relayed on slickly produced videos that pin-balled around social media, proved an innovative tactic that resonated with disaffected youth. ISIS recruited around 43,000 fighters from 120 countries to the caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Some acted in al-Baghdadi’s name at home, killing hundreds of innocents at hotels, mosques and concert halls from Paris to the Sinai, Beirut to San Bernardino, Calif.
The widespread violence earned al-Baghdadi a $25-million U.S. bounty on his head and enemies across the world. He went underground. For years there were erroneous reports that he was seriously wounded or killed. After the collapse of his self-proclaimed caliphate, al-Baghdadi had been shuttling back-and-forth in the desert between western Iraq and eastern Syria, traveling mostly in cars and Toyota pickup trucks with a small entourage that included heavily armed bodyguards, according to a U.S. intelligence official. He rarely stayed more than one night in the same place, and like bin Laden, communicated by courier rather than using phones or computers, the official said. Al-Baghdadi was located when Iraqi forces picked up two members of his entourage in an unrelated operation and passed the intelligence they collected to the CIA.
After a five-year absence from public view, al-Baghdadi had appeared April 29 in an 18-minute propaganda video. In a black tunic with a Kalashnikov rifle at his side, he stated that ISIS’s fight against the West was far from over. “Our battle today is a war of attrition to harm the enemy, and they should know that jihad will continue until doomsday,” he told a roomful of followers seated cross-legged on the floor.
A U.S. counterterrorism official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on al-Baghdadi’s death, told TIME that danger still looms from al-Baghdadi’s call for followers to shift from larger attacks to more small actions outside Iraq and Syria. Even so, the official said that al-Baghdadi’s death, while partly symbolic, would “silence maybe the most inspirational terrorist voice that remained.”
—with reporting by John Walcott and Kimberly Dozier from Washington
