UPDATED 

Ennio Morricone, the Oscar-winning composer, has 

died at the age of 91.


GREATEST FILM SCORE COMPOSER EVER

The Italian musician, who scored more than 400 films, died on Monday (6 July) at the Campus Bio-Medico in Rome, a week after suffering a fall in which he broke his femur.

He scored seven for his fellow countryman Sergio Leone after they had met as kids in elementary school.

Born in 1928, Morricone began his career as a trumpet player before turning to film composition in 1961, going on to create music for more than 70 award-winning movies.

In 1966, Morricone composed the iconic soundtrack to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a score so influential it earned him a spot in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009.

Biography:
Ennio Morricone, (born 10 November 1928) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and former trumpet player, writing in a wide range of musical styles. Since 1961, Morricone has composed over 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as over 100 classical works. His score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is considered one of the most influential soundtracks in history and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. His filmography includes over 70 award-winning films, including all Sergio Leone films (since A Fistful of Dollars), all Giuseppe Tornatore films (since Cinema Paradiso), The Battle of Algiers, Dario Argentos Animal Trilogy, 1900, Exorcist II, Days of Heaven, several major films in French cinema, in particular the comedy trilogy La Cage aux Folles I, II, III and Le Professionnel, as well as The Thing, The Mission, The Untouchables, Mission to Mars, Bugsy, Disclosure, In the Line of Fire, Bulworth, Ripley's Game and The Hateful Eight.

After playing the trumpet in jazz bands in the 1940s, he became a studio arranger for RCA Victor and in 1955 started ghost writing for film and theatre. Throughout his career, he has composed music for artists such as Paul Anka, Mina, Milva, Zucchero and Andrea Bocelli. From 1960 to 1975, Morricone gained international fame for composing music for Westerns and—with an estimated 10 million copies sold—Once Upon a Time in the West is one of the best-selling scores worldwide. From 1966 to 1980, he was a main member of Il Gruppo, one of the first experimental composers collectives, and in 1969 he co-founded Forum Music Village, a prestigious recording studio. From the 1970s, Morricone excelled in Hollywood, composing for prolific American directors such as Don Siegel, Mike Nichols, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Warren Beatty, John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino. In 1977, he composed the official theme for the 1978 FIFA World Cup. He continued to compose music for European productions, such as Marco Polo, La piovra, Nostromo, Fateless, Karol and En mai, fais ce qu'il te plait. Morricone's music has been reused in television series, including The Simpsons and The Sopranos, and in many films, including Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. He also scored seven Westerns for Sergio Corbucci, Duccio Tessari's Ringo duology and Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown and Face to Face. Morricone worked extensively for other film genres with directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Mauro Bolognini, Giuliano Montaldo, Roland Joffé, Roman Polanski and Henri Verneuil. His acclaimed soundtrack for The Mission (1986)[7] was certified gold in the United States. The album Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone stayed 105 weeks on the Billboard Top Classical Albums.

Morricone's best-known compositions include "The Ecstasy of Gold", "Se Telefonando", "Man with a Harmonica", "Here's to You", the UK No. 2 single "Chi Mai", "Gabriel's Oboe" and "E Più Ti Penso". In 1971, he received a "Targa d'Oro" for worldwide sales of 22 million, and by 2016 Morricone had sold over 70 million records worldwide. In 2007, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music." He has been nominated for a further six Oscars. In 2016, Morricone received his first competitive Academy Award for his score to Quentin Tarantinos film The Hateful Eight, at the time becoming the oldest person ever to win a competitive Oscar. His other achievements include three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.

Morricone has influenced many artists from film scoring to other styles and genres, including Hans Zimmer, Danger Mouse, Dire Straits, Muse, Metallica, and Radiohead.
R.I.P.






Ennio Morricone, Oscar-Winning ‘Hateful Eight’ 

Composer, Dies at 91


By Carmel Dagan

Courtesy of Muthmedia GmbH

Oscar winner Ennio Morricone, composer of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “The Mission” and among the most prolific and admired composers in film history, has died. He was 91.

Morricone died early Monday in a Rome clinic, where he was taken shortly after suffering a fall that caused a hip fracture, his lawyer Giorgio Asumma told Italian news agency ANSA.

Shortly after Morricone’s death was confirmed, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tweeted: “We will always remember, with infinite gratitude, the artistic genius of the Maestro #EnnioMorricone. It made us dream, feel excited, reflect, writing memorable notes that will remain indelible in the history of music and cinema.”

The Italian maestro’s estimated 500 scores for films and television, composed over more than 50 years, are believed to constitute a record in Western cinema for sheer quantity of music.

At least a dozen of them became film-score classics, from the so-called spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, including “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “Once Upon a Time in the West” to the widely acclaimed “The Mission” and “Cinema Paradiso” of the 1980s.

ENNIO MORRICONE CHANNEL ON YOU TUBE

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He was nominated six times for Oscars — for “Days of Heaven,” “The Mission,” “The Untouchables,” “Bugsy,” “Malena” and “The Hateful Eight,” winning for the last of these — and in 2006 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences presented him with an honorary Oscar for “his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music.” He was only the second composer in Oscar history to receive an honorary award for his body of work.

He contributed the original score to Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” in 2015 after having made some earlier comments about being unhappy with the way his music, originally composed for other movies, had been used in earlier Tarantino films.

Their collaboration on “Hateful Eight,” first announced by Variety in June 2015, took place rapidly, with Morricone working from Tarantino’s screenplay, rather than scoring specific scenes, similarly to his technique on “Once Upon a Time in the West.”

Although he preferred to work in Rome — and famously refused to speak any language other than Italian — he worked with a wide range of filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Sergio Leone (“Once Upon a Time in America”), Gillo Pontecorvo (“The Battle of Algiers”), Bernardo Bertolucci (“1900”), Terence Malick (“Days of Heaven”), William Friedkin (“Rampage”), Roman Polanski (“Frantic”), Brian De Palma (“The Untouchables”), Barry Levinson (“Disclosure”), Mike Nichols (“Wolf”) and Giuseppe Tornatore (“Cinema Paradiso”).

He was classically trained and insisted upon personally orchestrating every note of his scores, unlike many of his contemporaries. The sound he achieved was often unique and innovative, as in the Western scores that featured whistling, bells, electric guitars, wordless soprano vocals and full choirs.





Morricone was so busy in the 1960s and 1970s that he often didn’t conduct his own music. From 1965-73, he wrote nearly 150 scores, more than many composers create in a lifetime. Many were for films never released in the U.S., which led to a small but passionate cult of record buyers who didn’t see the films but doted on the music.

While he is often remembered for his often wildly romantic themes (notably for such 1970s European films as “Metti, una sera a cena” and “Maddalena”), he also excelled at crime dramas (“Revolver”) and enjoyed indulging his passion for dissonance and improvisatory music, especially in the Italian “giallo” thriller films of the 1970s (such as Dario Argento’s “The Bird With the Crystal Plumage”).

Morricone had enjoyed a top-10 hit with the theme for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” but it was “The Mission” that brought him worldwide acclaim in 1986. His alternately primitive and sophisticated, choral and orchestral music for Roland Joffe’s epic set in 18th century South America won BAFTA and Golden Globe awards but lost the Oscar to “Round Midnight,” a jazz score that wasn’t entirely original.

The loss — which outraged Oscar observers and disappointed Morricone in his best-ever shot at Oscar glory — resulted in modification to Academy rules and, eventually, the honorary Oscar as a 20-years-late consolation prize.

But in general, Morricone devoted more time In later years to classical composition, writing more than 50 works for chamber groups, symphony orchestra, solo voice and choral ensembles. Appearing in concert at the United Nations in early 2007, he conducted his “Voci Dal Silencio,” a cantata in memory of those killed in 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.

He launched a film-scoring career with “Il Federale” in 1961. The Leone films of the 1960s — notably the Clint Eastwood “Man With No Name” trilogy that started with “Fistful of Dollars” in 1964 — ensured his future in movies, although in later years he would regularly remind interviewers that he had worked in every genre, not just Westerns. Director Quentin Tarantino used obscure Morricone tracks in several of his films, including “Kill Bill,” “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained,” and Morricone composed an original song for “Django Unchained,” “Ancora Qui.”
Morricone was born in Rome. He took up the trumpet at an early age and studied music at Italy’s famed Santa Cecilia conservatory under composer Goffredo Petrassi. Although he initially preferred writing for the concert hall, he began to arrange and conduct for pop singers in the late 1950s as a means of earning a living. His pop song “Se Telefonando” was one of Italy’s big hits of 1966.

Artists in every genre of music-making have paid tribute to the maestro, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma in a bestselling 2004 classical album and the all-star 2007 tribute “We All Love Ennio Morricone” that featured Celine Dion, Bruce Springsteen and Metallica.

His albums have sold, it is estimated, more than 50 million units worldwide.

In addition to his honorary Oscar, he received seven of Italy’s David di Donatello awards, another Golden Globe for “The Legend of 1900,” a Grammy and another BAFTA for “The Untouchables,” ASCAP’s Golden Soundtrack Award and the career achievement award of the Film Music Society.

In recent years he had conducted concerts of his own music around the world, including a notable American debut at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 2007. Although he was scheduled to conduct at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009, the event was cancelled and he never returned to L.A.

Morricone is survived by wife Maria Travia and their four children.


A FAVE OF MINE

 



Oscar-winning Italian composer Ennio Morricone 

dies at 91



Ennio Morricone at the 2016 Oscars, where he won the award for best original score for Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight.” (Jordan Strauss / Invision/ Associated Press)

By DAVID COLKER
JULY 6, 2020
12:46 AM

Oscar-winning film composer Ennio Morricone, who came to prominence with the Italian western “A Fistful of Dollars” and went on to write some of the most celebrated movie scores of all time, has died. He was 91.

Morricone’s longtime lawyer, Giorgio Assumma, told the Associated Press that the composer died early Monday in a Rome hospital of complications following a fall, in which he broke a leg.

A native of the Italian capital, Morricone composed music for more than 500 films and television shows in a career that spanned more than 50 years. At first he was closely associated with “A Fistful of Dollars” director Sergio Leone, for whom he scored six films, including “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “Once Upon a Time in America.” Established in his own right, Morricone turned out classic scores for films such as “Days of Heaven,” “Bugsy,” “Cinema Paradiso,” “The Untouchables,” “La Cage aux Folles” and “Battle of Algiers.”

A favorite of critics, directors and other composers, Morricone’s score to the 1986 film “The Mission” was voted best film score of all time in a 2012 Variety poll. On his sixth nomination, he finally won a competitive Oscar, in 2016, for his score for Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight.” The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had awarded Morricone an honorary Oscar in 2007.

He also occasionally did live performances in which he conducted orchestra and choruses in both his film music and concert pieces he composed.

It was a 1960s recording made in Rome of the Woody Guthrie song “Pastures of Plenty” that launched Morricone’s international career. The seemingly incongruous mixture of sounds in the orchestration — surging violins, the crack of a whip, church bells, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, chimes and a chanting male chorus — so entranced Leone that he ditched his original choice of composer and hired Morricone to score what became 1964’s “A Fistful of Dollars.”

Morricone’s music, like the man who wrote it, was never shy.

“The best film music is music that you can hear,” he said in a 1995 BBC documentary about his life and work. “Music you can’t hear, no matter how good, is bad film music.”

Although Morricone scored several Hollywood movies, he usually did so from his home city of Rome and seldom traveled to Los Angeles. He never learned more than a handful of phrases in English and even refused an offer from a studio to buy him a house in L.A. His absence didn’t diminish his popularity among high-profile U.S. musicians — the 2007 tribute album “We All Love Ennio Morricone” featured performers as varied as opera soprano Renee Fleming, rocker Bruce Springsteen, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the heavy metal band Metallica.

“He has taken so many risks, and his music is not polished whatsoever,” said Metallica lead singer James Hetfield in a 1977 New York Times interview. The band regularly used a theme from the western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in its concerts. “It’s very rude and blatant,” Hetfield said of Morricone’s music. “ All of a sudden a Mexican horn will come blasting through and just take over the melody. It’s just so raw, really raw, and it feels real, unpolished.”

Addressing the more melodic side of Morricone, film music composer and former rock musician Danny Elfman said in a 1999 Los Angeles Times interview, “Anyone who’s ever written any kind of romantic score has been influenced by him.”

If there is a common thread to Morricone’s work, it’s the mixing of that raw and romantic, expressed with a blend of unlikely instruments to create excitement, suspense, joy and pathos — sometimes all in the same film.

That was never more true than in “The Mission” (1986), set in 18th-century South America, in which a tune played on the oboe has a key role in the plot. In the movie, the oboe player is a Jesuit priest who is accepted, in part because of the music he makes, by a native tribe deep in the jungle. The score, which ranges from ominously dissident to celebratory tonal, features pan pipes and drums of various types to represent tribal sounds, plus an orchestra, chorus and child singers. As the action culminates near the end of the film, all these sounds can be heard fitting together like a puzzle that suddenly gets solved.

“These three elements: the oboe, the native music and Western music taught by the Jesuits had to be combined into a whole,” Morricone said in an English translation on the BBC program. “The union of these elements is very important. In them I see myself, spiritually and technically.”

Morricone was born Nov. 10, 1928, in a working-class neighborhood in Rome. His father, Mario, was a musician who played trumpet in night clubs and taught his son to play the instrument at an early age. Ennio did his first composing at age 6. “I wrote silly bits of music,” he said in a 1989 interview with British author Christopher Frayling. “They were hunting themes. I destroyed them.”

He enrolled at age 14 in the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he studied classical music, including works by contemporary composers. But at night he often subbed for his unwell father, playing trumpet in clubs. Graduating from the conservatory in 1954, he went on to compose several serious pieces. He married Maria Travia in 1956 and the following year they had a son.

“Little by little I realized that I couldn’t live on the very meager income from composing contemporary music,” Morricone told Frayling. He turned to arranging pop tunes and in just a few years became quite successful, working on songs for television variety shows and for famed stars such as Mario Lanza. The first film score for which he received a credit was for director Luciano Salce’s 1961 “Il Federale” (“The Fascist”).

Morricone soon found himself in demand as a film composer. Able to work fast, he picked up several more credits over the next couple years, including for two westerns. Those led to his being considered for the Leone film and when the two men met, Morrisone had a surprise for the director. He told him they had met before, more than 30 years ago in third grade and Morricone had the picture to prove it. The class photo, from an school in Rome, showed the two boys sitting just one student apart from each other, although back then they were not close friends.

The recording of “Pastures of Plenty” sealed the deal for Morricone to write the music for “Fistful of Dollars,” and his unorthodox, upfront score for the film starring Clint Eastwood was credited with helping it become a worldwide success.

“I think the music of Ennio becomes almost visible, becomes almost a visual element in the film,” the late director Bernardo Bertolucci said in the BBC documentary.

Morricone and Leone teamed again for two more films in what came to be known as the “Dollars” trilogy of westerns starring Eastwood: “For a Few Dollars More” (1965) and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966), which is likely the composer’s best known work.

In a 2007 tribute to Morricone, Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed called it “audacious” music. “The whistle, the whoop, the ‘60s rock guitar, the ocarina, the quick-tongued trumpets, the simple harmonies, the catchy melody are a combination never before associated with the American West or anyplace or anything else,” Swed said.

The working relationship between the director and composer was so close that Leone sometimes had Morricone compose and record the music before the film was shot. Leone would play the music on the set to help set the mood for actors, and at times he would shoot the film to go with the music instead of the usual other way around.

In all, they did six films together, ending with “Once Upon A Time in America” (1984), which had one of Morricone’s most melodic scores. Leone died in 1989.

Among other directors that Morricone worked with multiple times were Bertolucci, Federico Fellini, Brian De Palma and Roland Joffe.

After finishing the 1976 Bertolucci epic “1900,” Morricone cut back a bit on film and TV composing to spend more time writing orchestra works. He stoped working on U.S. films entirely, but for a different reason. “I was being paid no more than the worst American composers,” he said in the BBC documentary. “So I decided to stop working for the Americans.”

English producer David Puttnam broke that logjam by paying him what he wanted for the Warner Bros.-financed “The Mission.” “He doesn’t sell himself cheaply,” Puttnam said in the BBC documentary, “but he does give you everything.”

The one thing that Morricone did not get out of “The Mission” was an Oscar, though he was nominated. At the awards ceremony in 1987, the winner, instead, was Herbie Hancock for “’Round Midnight.”

Morricone did not hide his disappointment. “Despite all the prizes and awards throughout Europe, the thing not fulfilled is the Oscar,” he said in a 1999 Los Angeles Times interview. “I feel there is a hole in me. I just don’t understand it.”

That hole was partially filled in 2007, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an honorary Oscar for “his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music.” Although the composer was visibly moved when he received the award from Clint Eastwood, he could not help but remind the Academy that it had passed him over for a competitive award.

In 2016, at age 87, he finally took home a competitive Oscar, for the score of “The Hateful Eight.” In his acceptance speech, he thanked the other nominated composers as a group but gave a special shout-out to John Williams, the “Star Wars” composer, perennial academy favorite and fellow octogenarian who had been working nearly as long as he had.

In his later years, Morricone conducted highly popular performances of his works with large orchestras and choruses massed especially for the occasions.

Still, he kept on composing for film and television, with total credits surpassing 520. But taking a stance that was uncharacteristically modest, Morricone said his output was slight compared to at least one classical composer.

“If you think about it, Bach, for example, used to compose one cantata a week. He had to compose the music in time for it to be performed in church on Sunday,” Morricone said in a 2010 interview with the Quietus online arts site. “So if you just consider Bach, you will see that I’m practically unemployed.”


David Colker

David Colker previously wrote and edited obituaries – a beat perhaps foreshadowed by being on the Timothy Leary death watch in 1996 when he took the assignment so seriously he was at Leary’s bedside when he died. He left The Times in 2015. 

Art world, politicians salute talent of Morricone

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Ennio Morricone, the iconic composer, died aged 91 TIZIANA FABI AFP

Rome (AFP)

Big names from Hollywood, music and politics lined up on Monday to praise the talent and the legacy of Italian maestro Ennio Morricone, after the iconic composer died aged 91, with Antonio Banderas saluting "a big master of cinema."

- Antonio Banderas -

"With great sadness, we say goodbye to a big master of cinema. His music will keep playing in our memories. Rest in peace #EnnioMorricone."


- Monica Bellucci -

"There are people who have the ability to make the world better because they know how to create beauty".

- Riccardo Muti, Italian conductor -

Morricone was "a master for whom I nurtured friendship and admiration."

- Metallica -

"Your career was legendary, your compositions were timeless. Thank you for setting the mood for so many of our shows since 1983," when the rock band started using "The Ecstasy of Gold" from the score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as its walk-on music.

- Edgar Wright, British screenwriter and producer -

"He could make an average movie into a must see, a good movie into art, and a great movie into legend."

- Hans Zimmer, German composer -

"Ennio was an icon and icons just don't go away, icons are forever."

- John Carpenter -

"A friend and collaborator, his talent was inestimable. I will miss him."

- Goldfrapp -

"Sad to hear about the passing of Ennio Morricone today. He was a huge inspiration for Goldfrapp too, in particular Felt Mountain."

- Yo-Yo Ma -

"I'll never forget the way Ennio Morricone described music as 'energy, space, and time.' It is, perhaps, the most concise and accurate description I've ever heard. We'll truly miss him."

- Britain's Royal Philharmonic Society -

"If proof were needed of orchestral music's enduring power and currency, imagine so many of the all-time great films without Ennio Morricone's colossal scores, giving so many of them their soul."

- Jean-Michel Jarre, French musician -

"Ennio Morricone was a source of constant inspiration, like a member of my family... he was omnipresent in my life."

- Giuseppe Conte, Italian prime minister -

"He made us dream, he moved us and made us think, writing unforgettable notes that will remain forever in the history of music and cinema."

© 2020 AFP

In Canada, Montreal moves to make masks obligatory in public places

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Montreal is going to require masks in all indoor public places such as stores, restaurants, bars and sports facilities Sebastien St-Jean AFP/File

Montreal (AFP)

The Canadian city of Montreal, one of the country's virus hotspots, will make wearing face masks in indoor public places mandatory in the coming weeks, Mayor Valerie Plante said Monday.

Montreal, Canada's second-largest city, follows in the footsteps of Toronto and the capital Ottawa, where masks will be obligatory from Tuesday.

Plante said the move, to come into effect from July 27, was in response to the "emergence of some outbreaks in the suburbs... which could undermine the efforts we have been making since the beginning of this pandemic."

  The measure will apply to shops, sports facilities, bars and restaurants, she said.

Last week, Quebec's provincial government said masks would be mandatory on public transport from July 13.

Plante said that some business owners had struggled "in ensuring that the rules of hygiene and distancing are respected in their establishments."

"For many, a loosening leading to eventual reconfinement would simply mean putting the key under the door," she said in a statement.

"A setback would be a disaster for human lives and for our economy."

Plante said there would be a grace period so everyone could be prepared, but warned that she would not hesitate to "crack down on offenders in the long run."

Quebec accounts for more than half of Canada's roughly 105,000 coronavirus cases, and nearly two-thirds of the 8,700 deaths -- most of them in the greater Montreal area.

© 2020 AFP

On Syria river, craftsmen revive famed water wheels


Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

The water wheels or "norias" of Hama were used for centuries to bring water to gardens and buildings on the shores of the Orontes River MAHER AL MOUNES AFP
Hama (Syria) (AFP)

On a riverbank in Syria's Hama, Mohammed Sultan tinkers away on a giant water wheel, one of a dwindling number of artisans able to restore the city's ancient wooden landmarks.

Used for centuries to bring water to gardens and buildings on the shores of the Orontes River, the water wheels or "norias" of Hama are believed to be unique worldwide, according to UNESCO.

The touristic landmarks have largely been spared by Syria's nine-year war, but some have fallen into disrepair or seen part of their timber stolen or burnt.


"It's our duty to bring them back to life," the 52-year-old said, sweat forming on his forehead after hammering a tenon into a freshly cut wood beam.

Nearby passers-by pose for pictures at the feet of the huge dark wooden wheel he is fixing, the city's largest and oldest, known as the Mohammadia.

Twenty-two metres (72 feet) in diameter, the wheel rises high above the water level and is believed to date back to the 14th century.

"The norias are Hama's spirit," Sultan told AFP, as children splash around in the Orontes.

"Without them, the city would be dead and drab."

- 'Giving back to my city' -

Clambering up and down a stone staircase to the wheel's centre, Sultan replaces some wood along one of its massive spokes.

"When I work with my colleagues to fix the norias, I feel like I'm giving something back to my city," said the artisan, who has 22 years of experience in his unique field.

"I forget how tired I am as soon as one starts turning again."

Hama city, north of the capital Damascus, was mostly spared fighting during the war, though battles did at times rage in the nearby countryside.

In other parts of Hama province, 10 of the region's 25 norias have in recent years stopped their slow, creaking rotation above the waterline.

The water wheels are believed to have originated in the Arab medieval era, but a mosaic dated 469 BC suggests they could have existed even earlier, UNESCO says.

Held together by an assortment of walnut, pine, poplar and oak wood, they once carried small wooden boxes that scooped up water each time they plunged into the river.

The wheels drew from the Orontes to irrigate nearby gardens, as well as supply water to mosques, public baths and homes on its banks.

Though no longer the case today, the wheels remain the pride of the city, drawing in droves of tourists before the war and featuring on Syrian banknotes.

"We continue to give great importance to restoring these historical relics in view of their symbolic value," Hama mayor Adnan Tayyar said.

"It's impossible to visit Hama without stopping by the norias," he added.

- Last of the noria craftsmen -

Ahd Saba al-Arab, head of the Hama noria authority, said he hoped visitors would soon flock back to the city.

But maintenance of the water wheels was becoming increasingly difficult, he said.

This was because the right wood had become expensive and in short supply, and there was now "a great scarcity of artisans with the right know-how".

The number of suitably skilled craftsmen has fallen from 35 to just nine, after many died or emigrated during the conflict.

Ismail, another of the last surviving experts, says he is proud to be able to carry on a tradition "all done by hand".

"The norias are the city's backbone," said the bespectacled man in his fifties.

But, moving agilely from one side of the Mohammadia to the other, he is worried about the next generation's lack of interest in the profession.

"Our craft is transmitted from father to son, but today we can no longer pass it on to our children," he said.

Record Temperatures and Record Low Sea Ice in Siberian Arctic

Wildfire smoke and seasonally low sea ice extent, eastern Laptev Sea, June 24 (NASA Worldview)

BY THE CONVERSATION 06-28-2020

[By Mark Serreze]

The Arctic heat wave that sent Siberian temperatures soaring to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the first day of summer put an exclamation point on an astonishing transformation of the Arctic environment that’s been underway for about 30 years.

As long ago as the 1890s, scientists predicted that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to a warming planet, particularly in the Arctic, where the loss of reflective snow and sea ice would further warm the region. Climate models have consistently pointed to “Arctic amplification” emerging as greenhouse gas concentrations increase.

Arctic amplification is now here in a big way. The Arctic is warming at roughly twice the rate of the globe as a whole. When extreme heat waves like this one strike, it stands out to everyone. Scientists are generally reluctant to say “We told you so,” but the record shows that we did. As director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center and an Arctic climate scientist who first set foot in the far North in 1982, I’ve had a front-row seat to watch the transformation.



This Arctic heat wave has been unusually long-lived. The darkest reds on this map of the Arctic are areas that were more than 14 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the spring of 2020 compared to the recent 15-year average. Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory

Arctic heat waves are happening more often – and getting stuck

Arctic heat waves now arrive on top of an already warmer planet, so they’re more frequent than they used to be. Western Siberia recorded its hottest spring on record this year, according the EU’s Copernicus Earth Observation Program, and that unusual heat isn’t expected to end soon. The Arctic Climate Forum has forecast above-average temperatures across the majority of the Arctic through at least August.


Arctic temperatures have been rising faster than the global average. This map shows the average change in degrees Celsius from 1960 to 2019. NASA-GISS

Why is this heat wave sticking around? No one has a full answer yet, but we can look at the weather patterns around it.

As a rule, heat waves are related to unusual jet stream patterns, and the Siberian heat wave is no different. A persistent northward swing of the jet stream has placed the area under what meteorologists call a “ridge.” When the jet stream swings northward like this, it allows warmer air into the region, raising the surface temperature.

Some scientists expect rising global temperatures to influence the jet stream. The jet stream is driven by temperature contrasts. As the Arctic warms more quickly, these contrasts shrink, and the jet stream can slow.

Is that what we’re seeing right now? We don’t yet know.

Swiss cheese sea ice and feedback loops

We do know that we’re seeing significant effects from this heat wave, particularly in the early loss of sea ice.

The ice along the shores of Siberia has the appearance of Swiss cheese right now in satellite images, with big areas of open water that would normally still be covered. The sea ice extent in the Laptev Sea, north of Russia, is the lowest recorded for this time of year since satellite observations began.

The loss of sea ice also affects the temperature, creating a feedback loop. Earth’s ice and snow cover reflect the Sun’s incoming energy, helping to keep the region cool. When that reflective cover is gone, the dark ocean and land absorb the heat, further raising the surface temperature.

Sea surface temperatures are already unusually high along parts of the Siberian Coast, and the warm ocean waters will lead to more melting.

The risks of thawing permafrost

On land, a big concern is warming permafrost – the perennially frozen ground that underlies most Arctic terrain.

When permafrost thaws under homes and bridges, infrastructure can sink, tilt and collapse. Alaskans have been contending with this for several years. Near Norilsk, Russia, thawing permafrost was blamed for an oil tank collapse in late May that spilled thousands of tons of oil into a river.

Thawing permafrost also creates a less obvious but even more damaging problem. When the ground thaws, microbes in the soil begin turning its organic matter into carbon dioxide and methane. Both are greenhouse gases that further warm the planet.

In a study published last year, researchers found that permafrost test sites around the world had warmed by nearly half a degree Fahrenheit on average over the decade from 2007 to 2016. The greatest increase was in Siberia, where some areas had warmed by 1.6 degrees. The current Siberian heat wave, especially if it continues, will regionally exacerbate that permafrost warming and thawing.


A satellite image shows the Norilsk oil spill flowing into neighboring rivers. The collapse of a giant fuel tank was blamed on thawing permafrost. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2020, CC BY

Wildfires are back again

The extreme warmth also raises the risk of wildfires, which radically change the landscape in other ways. Drier forests are more prone to fires, often from lightning strikes. When forests burn, the dark, exposed soil left behind can absorb more heat and hasten warming.

We’ve seen a few years now of extreme forest fires across the Arctic. This year, some scientists have speculated that some of the Siberian fires that broke out last year may have continued to burn through the winter in peat bogs and reemerged.

A disturbing pattern

The Siberian heat wave and its impacts will doubtless be widely studied. There will certainly be those eager to dismiss the event as just the result of an unusual persistent weather pattern.

Caution must always be exercised about reading too much into a single event – heat waves happen. But this is part of a disturbing pattern. What is happening in the Arctic is very real and should serve as a warning to everyone who cares about the future of the planet as we know it.

Mark Serreze is a Research Professor of Geography and the Director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado Boulder.

This article appears courtesy of The Conversation and may be found in its original form here.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

Russian Space Agency aide detained, accused of treason
Ivan Safronov's arrest "could be connected with his previous publications about the military," according to a report. He joined Roscosmos in May this year as policy adviser to the agency's chief Dmitry Rogozin.


A former journalist and current policy advisor to the head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, was detained on Tuesday accused of treason, the organization announced.

The charges Ivan Safronov faces relate to the passing of state secrets to a NATO country, the RIA news agency said, citing Russia's security service (FSB).

Read more: UK sanctions Russians, Saudis, and their 'blood money'

The FSB allege Safronov passed on classified military data, as well as defense information, to the other country.

Meanwhile, Roscomos said an investigation was underway and that it was "fully cooperating with the investigative authorities."

Press mobilizes in Safronov's defense

There has been an outpouring of support for Ivan Safronov from within the Russian media sector. Journalists gathering outside the FSB building in Moscow to protest his arrest. Several demonstrators were arrested, though one-man pickets do not have to be authorized in advance in Russia. Many of the assembled protesters told reporters that they were convinced that Ivan Safronov had been arrested for his independent journalism.

Representatives of several well-known media outlets including Safronov's former employer Kommersant and the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, have published official statements of support for Safronov, vouching for his high professional standards.

Speaking in a video from a police van, Kommersant journalist Alexander Chernykh commented that "when journalists are arrested one after the other – that is a very bad sign for our whole country." On Monday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva was found guilty of inciting terrorism for a column. Some observers have also compared Safronov's case with the arrest of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov last year. He was accused of drugs possession but all charges against him were dropped after a huge public outcry over the case because of a lack of evidence.

Safronov's father, also called Ivan, was an investigative reporter at Kommersant as well. He died in 2007 in murky circumstances having fallen from a high window. An inquiry ruled it was suicide, but some of his colleagues disputed that, saying he had been working on a story about Russian arms deals with Iran and Syria.

Roscosmos: Arrest unconnected to us

The space agency said in a statement that the arrest of Safronov in Moscow had nothing to do with his work at Roscosmos. He joined the space agency as a media and policy adviser in May this year.

A source told news agency Interfax that Safronov's arrest could be connected to his work as a journalist, his previous profession, and that he did not have permission to access state secrets as a member of staff at Roscomos.

Safronov was a journalist and columnist working for the independent newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti, where he wrote about political issues, the military, and space programs in Russia.

In 2019, Kommersant took down an online article co-written by Safronov about the delivery of Russian jets to Egypt. The decision to remove the column was made in the wake of court proceedings getting under way looking into the disclosure of state secrets.

Safronov was forced to resign from Kommersant in May 2019 after filing a report saying the speaker of Russia's upper house was planning to resign.

The entire politics desk of the newspaper quit in protest against the dismissals of Safronov and a colleague who co-authored the piece.

DW's Emily Sherwin contributed to this report from Moscow.

jsi/rc (AFP, dpa, Reuters)


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Date 07.07.2020
Related Subjects Vladimir Putin, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia, Dmitry Medvedev
Keywords Roscosmos, Space Agency, treason, Russia, NATO

Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3euCm

Journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva found guilty of 'inciting terrorism'
The freelance contributor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty had been accused of "publicly inciting terrorism." Prokopyeva, who says she was doing her job, was placed on a list of "terrorists and extremists."


A Russian court on Monday found journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva guilty of justifying terrorism.

Prokopyeva had reported a story about a young man who detonated a bomb inside a government building and faced up to seven years in prison on terrorism-related charges.

The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist used a radio program in 2018 to discuss the case of a 17-year-old who blew himself up at the office of the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk.

She denied the charge and said she had been put on trial for doing her job.

The court fined Prokopyeva 500,000 roubles (€6,160, $6,952). The journalist's supporters who were present in the courtroom shouted "shame" and "she is not guility" as the judge read out the verdict.

Prokopyeva, who arrived at the court wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan "We will not shut up", said she would appeal the decision.

Prosecutors had asked the judge to jail Prokopyeva for six years and ban her from working in journalism for four years on the charges that carry a maximum sentence of seven years. 

Read more: Prison sentence looms for celebrated Russian director

Dozens of human rights defenders signed a statement published by the Memorial rights group denouncing the case as "openly political" with the goal of "intimidating Russian journalists".

"A journalist is entitled to freely spread information not only on events but also on ideas," the statement read.

Ahead of the sentencing, international press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders urged the Russian authorities to throw out the case saying it set a "dangerous precedent."

Human Rights Watch's Damekya Aitkhozhina — who described the terrorism charge as "bogus" — said Prokopyeva's fine was "another devastating blow to media freedom in Russia."


RIOT DAYS: PUSSY RIOT'S ACTS OF DEFIANCE
Starting a riot
All-girl Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot created an international storm in 2012 with a guerrilla performance in Moscow's main cathedral that called for the Virgin Mary to protect Russia against Vladimir Putin, who was elected to a new term as Russia's president a few days later. The protest attracted worldwide attention, and three members of the group were arrested. MORE PICTURES 12345678910111213141516

The rights group last month described the case as a "violation of freedom of expression" that sent a "chilling message".

Last week, Prokopyeva's employer said she had done the opposite of what prosecutors had alleged.

"Svetlana's commentary was an effort to explain a tragedy," RFE/RL acting president Daisy Sindelar said in a statement.

Read more: Russian TV abruptly pulls Zelenskiy's sitcom after cutting Putin joke

"The portrayal of her words as 'promoting terrorism' is a deliberate and politically motivated distortion aimed at silencing her critical voice, and recalls the worst show trials of one of Russia's darkest periods."

kw/rc (AFP Reuters)

Coronavirus: China detains professor who criticized President Xi Jinping
Xu Zhangrun has been detained after publishing an essay in which the professor made critical comments of the Chinese government’s handling of the pandemic. The professor also took a dim view of other government policies.


Chinese authorities on Monday detained a law professor who published articles criticizing President Xi Jinping (above) over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as his undemocratic policies, according to friends of the man.

Xu Zhangrun was seized at his home in suburban Beijing, before being taken away by more than 20 people, one of his friends said on condition of anonymity.

The Chinese regime takes a dim view of negative publicity, particularly if it stems from the nation's heavily censored academic sector.

Read more: Coronavirus: Li Wenliang's death 'a moment of awakening' for China

Xu's detention has been linked to an essay he published in February citing the culture of deception and censorship fostered by President Xi as a reason for the spread of the novel virus.

The Chinese "leader system is itself destroying the structure of governance," Xu wrote in the paper that was published on websites outside of China, adding the chaos in the coronavirus epicentre of Hubei province was down to systemic issues.

Xu said China was "led by one man only, but this man is in the dark and rules tyrannically, with no method for governance, though he is skilled at playing with power, causing the entire country to suffer."

Read more: Hong Kong is being 'robbed of its rights'

He also predicted that an ongoing economic slowdown would cause "the decline of national confidence," along with "political and academic indignation and social atrophy."

It is not the first time Xu has been critical of the government. The law professor at Tsinghua University, one of the country's most renowned institutions, had previously criticized the 2018 abolition of presidential term limits in an essay that was also well-circulated online.

jsi/rc (AFP, ARD)

Brazil prosecutors target minister over Amazon destruction

Ricardo Salles is accused of promoting policies that "violate" his duty to protect the environment. In 2019, wildfires raged through Brazil's Amazon rainforest and experts fear a repeat this year


Brazilian prosecutors on Monday called for the dismissal of the country's environment minister, alleging "countless initiatives that violate the duty to protect the environment."

At the heart of the allegations is that Ricardo Salles, 45, played a fundamental role in increasing deforestation in the Amazon by removing measures designed to protect the rainforest.

The charge sheet also includes "administrative dishonesty," in promoting interests unrelated to his role in government, echoing suggestions from other sectors that claim Salles supported the legalization of mining activities in protected areas.

Read more: As coronavirus and deforestation soar in Brazil, groups take Bolsonaro to court

The minister oversaw a 25% reduction in environmental funding, as well as the freezing of an international financial package to combat deforestation. This in turn "directly contributed" to an upsurge in the permanent removal of trees, according to a statement by 12 public prosecutors.

The prosecutors want Salles' political rights suspended and for him to pay damages, as well as receive a financial penalty for his conduct.

Salles courted controversy recently when he was recorded saying the government should take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to ease environmental regulations.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has received widespread criticism for his relaxed attitude towards the exploitation of the Amazon forest, as well as a number of other environmental issues. He has frequently made questionable claims about the environment, including last year blaming NGOs for the fires that raged through the Amazon. He provided no evidence to support his claim.

Read more: The rape of Colombia's Indigenous children

Fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest increased by almost 20% in June, the highest recorded for 13 years for the month.

In 2019 wildfires led to protests within Brazil and elsewhere. And as this year's dry season takes hold, environmentalists have expressed grave concern that 2020 is on track to be the most destructive year ever for the world's biggest rainforest.

The Amazon spans numerous countries in South America, but is 60% in Brazil, and it is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.

jsi/rc (AFP, EFE)

Hong Kong: Google, Facebook and Twitter halt user data requests

The social media giants have taken the step after China enacted a controversial new national security law. Opponents fear the law will be used to crack down on dissenting opinions and stifle free speech.


Twitter, Facebook and Google are pausing requests from Hong Kong's authorities seeking user data amid growing concerns over China's controversial new national security law.

Facebook, which also owns popular platforms Whatsapp and Instagram, said it was "pausing" requests from the Hong Kong government and police for all of its services "pending further assessment" of the law, the company said in a statement released Monday.

Google and Twitter suspended reviews of government requests for data after the law went into effect last week.

Twitter cited "grave concerns" about the law's implications.

Popular video clip-sharing app TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, later followed suit, saying that "in light of recent events" it would cease operations in Hong Kong. TikTok has adamantly denied sharing user data with Chinese authorities and said it did not intend to begin honoring such requests.

Zoom, Telegram, and LinkedIn also said they would suspend compliance with data requests.

Users scrub accounts

Beijing says the new law is to clamp down on violent pro-democracy protests that have taken place in Hong Kong since last year.

Under the law secession, terrorism, subversion, and "collusion" with foreign powers are banned and carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

China now has jurisdiction for "serious" security offenses in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong.

Google, Twitter and Facebook have continued to operate in Hong Kong, while they are blocked by mainland China's firewall. After the law came into force, many users began scrubbing their social media accounts for any posts that could be deemed sensitive.

'Fundamental human right'

"We believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and support the right of people to express themselves without fear for their safety or other repercussions," said Facebook in a statement.

"Twitter cares and is committed to protecting the people using our service and their freedom of expression," Twitter told news agency AFP on its decision.

Google has paused production on any new data requests from Hong Kong authorities and will continue to review the details of the new law, the company said in a statement.

Free speech?

Social networks often apply localized restrictions to posts that violate local laws but not their own rules for acceptable speech. In the second half of 2019, Facebook restricted 394 such pieces of content in Hong Kong ,up from eight in the first half of the year, according to its transparency report.

kp,kmm/stb (AFP, Reuters, AP)

Germany, others would not recognize Israeli annexation

Germany has issued a joint statement with France, Egypt and Jordan saying they would not recognize a unilateral Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory, also warning it would have "consequences" for relations.


The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Egypt and Jordan warned Israel against annexing Palestinian territory in the West Bank following a video conference Tuesday focused on restarting talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

In a joint statement distributed by Germany's Foreign Ministry, the ministers said: "We concur that any annexation of Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 would be a violation of international law and imperil the foundations of the peace process."

"We would not recognize any changes to the 1967 borders that are not agreed by both parties in the conflict. It could also have consequences for the relationship with Israel."

Read more: Trump's Middle East peace plan satisfies no one

Trump's contentious peace plan

Settlement policy is one of the most contentious issues in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of the international community views Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as illegal — a view that Israel disputes.

A peace plan proposed in January by the administration of US President Donald Trump was criticized by the EU as "departing from" international agreements on the conflict.

Under Trump's plan, Palestinians would lose control of areas currently under Israeli occupation or controlled by settlers though annexation — even though the Palestinians are entitled to these lands by international law.

Read more: The 1967 Six-Day War and its difficult legacy

EU in a diplomatic tangle

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in February that annexation, if implemented, "could not pass unchallenged."

However, the lack of a consensus on a response by EU member states keeps the bloc from specifying what any such challenge would entail.

Read more: German-Israeli relations: What you need to know

Germany, for example, has ruled out economic sanctions in response to annexation and is in a tough spot diplomatically due to its "historic responsibility" for Israel's security.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told his British counterpart Boris Johnson on Monday that he was committed to implementing Trump's plan.

"Israel is prepared to conduct negotiations on the basis of President Trump's peace plan, which is both creative and realistic, and will not return to the failed formulas of the past," Netanyahu's statement said.

wmr/msh (Reuters, dpa)

Scientists warn new aggressive seaweed is killing Hawaiian coral reefs
A new species of algae is destroying large patches of once-vibrant reef in one of the most remote ocean sanctuaries on earth. Experts have warned that the phenomena could become an ecological and economic 'disaster.'



A recently discovered species of seaweed is attacking large swathes of coral reef northwest of Hawaii and is spreading more rapidly than ever seen before, a group of researchers said on Tuesday.

The study, conducted by the University of Hawaii and others, said the aggressive seaweed species is a "highly destructive seaweed with the potential to overgrow entire reefs."

According to the researchers, the algae easily detaches and rolls across the ocean floor like tumbleweed, covering nearby reefs in thick vegetation, depriving the coral of sunlight, nutrients and space.

"Everything underneath of it was dead … We need to figure out where it's currently found, and what we can do to manage it,'' said Heather Spalding, a biologist and co-author of the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

The phenomena is causing havoc in the once unspoiled, remote coral reefs in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a unique nature reserve that stretches more than 2092 kilometers (1,300 miles) north of the main Hawaiian Islands.

Read more: Madagascar: No more fish? We'll farm seaweed instead

'As far as the eye could see'

Government researchers conducting routine inspections of the Pearl and Hermes Atoll in 2016 said they discovered small clusters of seaweed they had never need before.

Fast forward three years, they returned to find algae had taken over massive areas of the reef. In some parts, the algae covered "everything, as far as the eye could see," with seaweed almost 20 centimeters (8 inches) thick.

The researchers also noted that tropical fish and other marine life that typically frequented the area to graze on seaweed were no longer present in the area.

Individual mats of seaweed were as large as several soccer fields, the scientists said, adding that the actual seaweed coverage area is likely to be much larger than documented because they couldn't survey the expansive sites during their short expedition.


The new species of seaweed is attacking large swathes of coral reef northwest of Hawaii.

Read more: Coral reefs rapidly die from marine heatwaves - study

Ecological and economic 'disaster'

The uninhabited Pearl and Hermes Atoll is located in the mid-Pacific, approximately 3,200 kilometers from Asia and North America.

The atoll is in the 1.6 million-square-kilometer Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, one of the world's biggest protected marine environments.

Hawaii's main islands have a number of known invasive seaweeds, but cases in the remote northwest are a rarity.

"We have, not until now, seen a major issue like this where we have a nuisance species that's come in and made such profound changes over a short period of time to the reefs,'' said University of Hawaii Professor Alison Sherwood, chief scientist on the study.

Researchers are still trying to uncover what is behind the phenomena. In other parts of the world, algae blooms often occur because fish that eat the plants have been harvested or forced to relocate as a result of environmental changes. But fishing in the area is prohibited.


Researchers are still trying to uncover what is behind the phenomena.

The study also suggested that the algae could be native, having lived in small, unseen crevices before a change in conditions caused it to bloom.

Officials said that the first step is to ensure anyone studying the seaweed doesn't end up spreading it elsewhere.

"If something like this got back to Waikiki or anywhere in the main Hawaiian Islands it would be an ecological disaster, but also an economic disaster," said Randall Kosaki, the NOAA's Deputy Superintendent of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, to the Associated Press.

"You can imagine what that would do to tourism to have an algae like this overgrowing the reefs," he said.

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Mary Trump’s book accuses President Trump of embracing ‘cheating as a way of life’

MAGGIE HABERMAN AND ALAN FEUER
THE NEW YORK TIMES
PUBLISHED JULY 7, 2020
Open this photo in gallery

In this file photo taken on June 26, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a meeting in the East Room of the White House, in Washington.MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Mary L. Trump, President Donald Trump’s niece, plans to publish a tell-all family memoir next week, describing how a decades-long history of darkness, dysfunction and brutality turned her uncle into a reckless leader who, according to her publisher, Simon & Schuster, “now threatens the world’s health, economic security and social fabric.”

The book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” depicts a multi-generational saga of greed, betrayal and internecine tension and seeks to explain how Trump’s position in one of New York’s wealthiest and most infamous real estate empires helped him acquire what Mary Trump has referred to as “twisted behaviours” – attributes like seeing other people in “monetary terms” and practising “cheating as a way of life.”

Tell-all book by Mary Trump to be released two weeks early due to ‘extraordinary interest’

Mary Trump, who at 55 has long been estranged from Donald Trump, is the first member of the Trump clan to break ranks with her relatives by writing a book about their secrets. Since late June, her family – led by the president’s younger brother, Robert S. Trump – has been trying to stop the publication of the book, citing a confidentiality agreement that she signed nearly 20 years ago during a dispute over the will of the family patriarch, Fred Trump Sr., the president’s father. But a judge in New York has refused to enjoin Simon & Schuster from releasing the memoir and is expected to soon rule on whether Mary Trump herself violated the confidentiality agreement.

Open this photo in gallery 

This cover image of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, by Mary L. Trump. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Here are some of the highlights from her manuscript:

CHEATING ON A COLLEGE ENTRANCE TEST

As a high school student in Queens, Mary Trump writes, Donald Trump paid someone to take a precollegiate test, the SAT, on his behalf. The high score the proxy earned for him, she adds, helped the young Donald Trump to later gain admittance as an undergraduate to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton business school.


Donald Trump has often boasted about attending Wharton, which he has referred to as “the best school in the world” and “super genius stuff.”

SENDING A BROTHER TO THE HOSPITAL ALONE

It has long been part of the Trump family’s lore that the eldest child of Fred Trump Sr., Fred Trump Jr., who was better known as Freddy, was the black sheep of the dynasty. Freddy Trump was a handsome, garrulous man and a heavy drinker who, after a miserable experience working for his father, left his job in real estate to pursue a passion for flying, becoming a pilot for Trans World Airlines.

Donald Trump has often remarked that his brother’s departure from the family business opened space for him to move into and succeed. “For me, it worked very well,” Donald Trump told The New York Times during his presidential campaign about serving under his father. “For Fred, it wasn’t something that was going to work.”

Fred Trump Sr. could be brutal to his namesake, shouting at him once as a group of employees looked on, “Donald is worth ten of you,” Mary Trump writes.

Freddy Trump died in 1981 from an alcohol-induced heart attack when he was 42, and Mary Trump tells the story in her book about how his family sent him to the hospital alone on the night of his death. No one went with him, Mary Trump writes.

Donald Trump, she added, went to see a movie.

”NO PRINCIPLES,” A SISTER SAYS

Even at the start of Donald Trump’s campaign, his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal appeals court judge, had deep reservations about his fitness for office, Mary Trump writes.

“He’s a clown – this will never happen,” she quotes her aunt as saying during one of their regular lunches in 2015, just after Donald Trump announced that he was running for president.

Maryanne Trump was particularly baffled by support for her brother among evangelical Christians, according to the book.

“The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there,” Mary Trump quotes her aunt as saying. “It’s mind boggling. But that’s all about his base. He has no principles. None!”

DONALD TRUMP, NARCISSIST

Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, asserts that her uncle has all nine clinical criteria for being a narcissist. And yet, she notes, even that label does not capture the full array of the president’s psychological troubles.

“The fact is,” she writes, “Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviours so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neurophysical tests that he’ll never sit for.”

At another point she says: “Donald has been institutionalized for most of his adult life, so there is no way to know how he would thrive, or even survive, on his own in the real world.”

Like other critics of the president, Mary Trump takes issue in the book with the notion that Donald Trump is a strategic thinker who operates according to specific agendas or organizing principles.

“He doesn’t,” she writes. “Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.”

Trump a narcissist shaped by bullying father, says niece in memoir

SHE CONFIRMS TRUMP IS A CLINICAL SOCIOPATH

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

SAUL LOEB AFP/File

New York (AFP)

Donald Trump's niece describes the US president as a lying narcissist who was shaped by his domineering father, according to excerpts of her eagerly anticipated memoir carried in US media Tuesday.

Mary Trump's "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man" is due out next week amid a legal battle to stop its publication.

In it, she accuses Trump of "hubris and wilful ignorance" stretching back to his younger days, according to CNN, which has seen a copy.


She writes that Trump developed "twisted behaviors" and saw "cheating as a way of life," according to the New York Times.

Trump alleges that the future US leader cheated on an exam, helping him get into the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton business school, the newspaper reported.

She says her uncle paid someone else to take the precollegiate test when he was a high school student in New York. The Times doesn't say how she knew this.

The 240-page book, out July 14, says Trump is a product of his "sociopath" father Fred Trump, the Washington Post reported.

Mary, a clinical psychologist, says her uncle failed to develop human emotion because his father created an abusive and traumatic homelife.

She says that for the future US leader, "lying was primarily a mode of self-aggrandizement meant to convince other people he was better than he actually was," the Post said.

The memoir is billed as the first unflattering portrayal of Trump by a family insider.

The president's younger brother Robert Trump went to court to try to block publication, arguing that Mary was violating a non-disclosure agreement signed in 2001 after the settlement over her grandfather's estate.

Last week a New York appeals judge ruled that Simon & Schuster is allowed to release the memoir, saying it was "not a party to the agreement."

On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany described it as "a book of falsehoods," even though she admitted she hadn't seen it.

"It's ridiculous, absurd allegations that have absolute no bearing in truth," McEnany told reporters.

- 'Clown' -

Mary is the son of Fred Trump Jr, Trump's older brother, who died in 1981 from complications related to alcoholism. Fred Trump Sr died in 1999.

She writes that her uncle meets all the clinical criteria for being a narcissist, according to the New York Times.

"Donald's pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neurophysical tests that he'll never sit for," she writes.

The memoir is also due to reveal that Mary was the crucial source for explosive New York Times reporting on Trump's finances, which suggested the billionaire paid little in tax for decades, according to The Daily Beast.

In the book, she quotes her sister Maryanne Trump Barry as "saying he's a clown -- this will never happen," after Trump announced he was running for president.

It is set to be the latest bombshell book to dish dirt on Trump after former aide John Bolton's tome, which describes Trump as corrupt and incompetent, hit shelves last month.

© 2020 AFP

UK set to resume Saudi arms sales despite Yemen concerns

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Campaigners say Britain has licensed nearly £5 billion in weapons to the kingdom since its Yemen campaign began in 2015 JUSTIN TALLIS AFP/File

London (AFP)

Britain said on Tuesday it would resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia, halted last year after a UK court ruling over the Gulf kingdom's bombing campaign in neighbouring Yemen.

Weapons exports were stopped in June 2019 after the Court of Appeal ordered the government to clarify how it assesses whether their use in Yemen's civil war breaches international humanitarian law (IHL).

The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and triggered what the United Nations has described as the world's worst existing humanitarian crisis.

However, the British government has concluded Saudi Arabia "has a genuine intent and the capacity to comply with IHL", according to International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, allowing for export licence reviews to restart.

"I have assessed that there is not a clear risk that the export of arms and military equipment to Saudi Arabia might be used in the commission of a serious violation of IHL," she said in a written statement to parliament

"The government will now begin the process of clearing the backlog of licence applications for Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners that has built up since 20 June last year."

She said it could take "some months" to complete.

The announcement came just a day after Britain slapped sanctions on 20 Saudis for their suspected roles in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

- 'Morally bankrupt' -

The weapons decision drew immediate criticism from arms control activists, with the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) saying it was considering further legal steps.

"This is a disgraceful and morally bankrupt decision," said Andrew Smith of CAAT.

"The Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the government itself admits that UK-made arms have played a central role on the bombing.

"We will be considering this new decision with our lawyers, and will be exploring all options available to challenge it."

Government figures analysed by CAAT show that Britain had licensed nearly £5 billion ($6.4 billion) in weapons to the kingdom since its Yemen campaign began in 2015.

In its 2019 ruling, England's Court of Appeal said the government had broken the law by failing to assess properly whether the arms it sells to Riyadh violated its commitments to human rights.

The court ordered the UK to "reconsider the matter" and weigh up future risks.

Truss said it had now "developed a revised methodology" to assess allegations of violations by Saudi forces, and determined past incidents were "isolated".

She said applications would be "carefully assessed" against the Consolidated European Union and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria.

"A licence would not be granted if to do so would be a breach of the Criteria," Truss said.