Case cracked: mystery Antarctica

fossil is massive prehistoric egg

CHILEAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY/AFP / HandoutThe fossil that had long baffled scientists is in fact the largest soft-shelled egg ever found, laid some 68 million years ago, possibly by a type of extinct sea snake or lizard

Scientists had nicknamed it "The Thing" -- a mysterious football-sized fossil discovered in Antarctica that sat in a Chilean museum awaiting someone who could work out just what it was.

Now, analysis has revealed the mystery fossil to be a soft-shelled egg, the largest ever found, laid some 68 million years ago, possibly by a type of extinct sea snake or lizard.

The revelation ends nearly a decade of speculation and could change thinking about the lives of marine creatures in this era, said Lucas Legendre, lead author of a paper detailing the findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"It is very rare to find fossil soft-shelled eggs that are that well-preserved," Legendre, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, told AFP.

"This new egg is by far the largest soft-shelled egg ever discovered. We did not know that these eggs could reach such an enormous size, and since we hypothesise it was laid by a giant marine reptile, it might also be a unique glimpse into the reproductive strategy of these animals," he said.

The fossil was discovered in 2011 by a group of Chilean scientists working in Antarctica. It looks a bit like a crumpled baked potato but measures a whopping 11 by seven inches -- 28 by 18 centimetres.

For years, visiting scientists examined the fossil in vain, until in 2018 a palaeontologist suggested it might be an egg.

- A mammoth find -

It wasn't the most obvious hypothesis given its size and appearance, and there was no skeleton inside to confirm it.

Analysis of sections of the fossil revealed "a layered structure similar to a soft membrane, and a much thinner hard outer layer, suggesting it was soft-shelled," Legendre said.

CHILEAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY/AFP / HandoutThe team believe this egg wasn't from a dinosaur - the types living in Antarctica at the time were mostly too small to have produced such a mammoth specimen

Chemical analyses showed "the eggshell is distinct from the sediment around it, and was originally a living tissue."

But that left other mysteries to unravel, including what animal laid such an enormous egg -- only one bigger has been found, produced by the now-extinct elephant bird from Madagascar.

The team believe this egg wasn't from a dinosaur -- the types living in Antarctica at the time were mostly too small to have produced such a mammoth egg, and the ones large enough laid spherical, rather than oval-shaped, ones.

Instead they believe it came from a kind of reptile, possibly a group known as Mosasaurs, which were common in the region.

- Soft-shelled dinosaur eggs -

The paper was published in Nature along a separate study that argues that it wasn't only ancient reptiles that laid soft-shell eggs -- dinosaurs did too.

For years, experts believed dinosaurs only laid hard-shelled eggs, which are all that had been found.

But Mark Norell, curator of palaeontology at the American Museum of Natural History, said the discovery of a group of fossilised embryonic Protoceratops dinosaurs in Mongolia made him revisit the assumption.

"Why do we only find dinosaur eggs relatively late in the Mesozoic and why only in a couple groups of dinosaurs," he said he asked himself.

The answer, he theorised, was that early dinosaurs laid soft-shell eggs that were destroyed and not fossilised.

To test the theory, Norell and a team analysed the material around some of the Protoceratops skeletons in the Mongolia fossil and another fossil of two apparently newborn Mussaurus.

They found chemical signatures showing the dinosaurs would have been surrounded by soft, leathery eggshells.

"The first dinosaur egg was soft-shelled," Norell and his team conclude in the paper.

Norell's findings may have implications for the fossil once named "The Thing" -- which is now known as Antarcticoolithus, according to a review of the studies published in Nature.

They "could implicate some form of dinosaur as the proud parent," wrote Johan Lindgren of Lund University and Benjamin Kear of Uppsala University.

"Let us hope that future discoveries of similarly spectacular fossil eggs with intact embryos will solve this thought-provoking enigma."

UPDATED
Canada's UN Security Council Bid Fails After 4-Year Campaign
In a contest against Ireland and Norway, Canada came out empty-handed

By Zi-Ann Lum



PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Members of the UN Security Council advise on the humanitarian situation in Syria during a meeting on Feb. 27, 2020.


By Zi-Ann Lum


OTTAWA — Canada has lost its bid for a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council after member nations cast secret ballots in New York Wednesday.

The result is a disappointing end to the country’s four-year campaign to return to the UN body since 2000. Election results show Canada received 108 of 192 valid votes, below the two-thirds threshold that’s required to win a seat.

Ireland and Norway, securing 128 and 130 votes respectively, will take their seats at the UN’s most important decision-making body for a two-year term beginning January 2021.

Turnout was high for the much-anticipated election with 192 out of 193 nations participating in the vote.

It’s a major loss for Canada, but for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in particular because of the “ownership” he’s taken in the campaign, according to Adam Chapnick, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada. 

Time wasn’t on Canada’s side.

“We joined this election extremely late,” the UN security council expert told HuffPost Canada in an interview. “In some ways, we’ve been campaigning with an arm tied behind our back.”

Physical distancing restrictions in the General Assembly hall could also delay voting and tallying results.

The country’s current campaign has been led by Marc-André Blanchard, a lawyer and former president of the Quebec Liberal Party. He was appointed Canada’s ambassador to the UN in 2016.

Recently, Blanchard has embarked on a campaign of physically distant events, arranging bike rides and picnic dinners with diplomats in Manhattan to shore up votes.

Canada will need to win at least two-thirds of support to secure a seat on the UN’s most important decision-making body for a two-year term beginning in January 2021.

Norway and Ireland, which have run longer campaigns, are also competing for the two open seats in the same voting bloc reserved for “Western European and Others Group” countries.

“The Irish have been campaigning for more than a decade. The Norwegian campaign has run twice as long as ours,” Chapnick said.

Canada’s campaign hasn’t been a smooth four-year run, either.

The election of Donald Trump as president in the United States heightened concerns about the North American Free Trade Agreement and deflected Canada’s attention from its Security Council bid for about a year.
JOHANNES EISELE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Canada's ambassador to the UN, Marc-Andre Blanchard speaks to the United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela on Jan. 26, 2019 at the United Nations in New York.

Another setback, Chapnick said, was the SNC-Lavalin affair, which shook countries’ confidence in making UN vote swaps with Canada. Ambassadors were uncertain if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government would survive the fall election.

Vote swapping is a common practice among member states to trade support in UN elections.

Despite Trudeau’s bumpy 2019, a political twist gave Canada a competitive advantage in vote swapping early this year.

In February, a cloud of political uncertainty fell over Ireland after an election that took down the incumbent prime minister resulted in a hung parliament.

On Monday, rival Irish parties announced an agreement to form a coalition government — 48 hours before the Security Council vote.

Chapnick said the timing of the outcome ameliorates Ireland’s decade-long bid, throwing a last-minute twist for Canada’s campaign.
Current Security Council described as ‘dysfunctional’

Canada has been on the outside looking in for more than two decades after losing a Security Council vote in October 2010.

Allan Rock, Canada’s former ambassador to the UN in New York between 2003-2006, said the loss in 2010 to Portugal was a rebuke of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government’s efforts to move away from multilateralism.

Before that, the only time Canada lost an election to the Security Council was in January 1946.

The former Chrétien-era cabinet minister told HuffPost he doesn’t believe the current campaign can be dismissed as a vanity project for Trudeau’s Liberal government.

“I think of it as an opportunity to serve, and being on the Security Council provides that opportunity uniquely, in a way that no other organization can,” Rock said. Canada could bring some much-needed “positive energy” to the Security Council, he said, describing the powerful body as currently “dysfunctional.”

“They find it difficult to get together and adopt resolutions. Russia and China are too frequently using their veto. There’s too little basis for consensus at the table,” Rock said. “For a while, they weren’t even able to agree on how they would meet during the pandemic.”
The Security Council has been missing in action in the pandemic.Allan Rock, former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations

The UN Security Council is made up of five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Every two years, elections are held to fill the rotating 10 non-permanent seats that round out the UN body.

Its dysfunction has been evident in the lack of UN intervention in the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars and the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. It hasn’t been much help in the world’s response to COVID-19, either.

“The Security Council has been missing in action in the pandemic,” Rock said. “It has not fulfilled a constructive role in coordinating the UN’s response.”

With the apparent inertia that has seized the Security Council, Rock believes there’s an appetite among members to build alliances with Canada to “establish peace and security and to accelerate development.”
Pandemic casts Security Council diplomacy in new light

Wednesday’s election won’t unfold like other ones in recent decades.

Special rules are in place to ensure physical distancing in the UN General Assembly Hall for Wednesday’s vote. Time slots will be given to 193 member countries to enter the venue to cast their ballots.

Canada’s ground game received help this week from Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who arrived in New York by car on Sunday to help Blanchard in the final stretch of the campaign.

Champagne told The Canadian Press “the race is tight” and that he’s made more than 100 calls in the past three weeks to his counterparts around the world and in New York.

“I sense momentum. But obviously you have to be cautious,” he said.

Since the 2015 election, Trudeau has treated the campaign for the UN seat as a marquee item in the Liberal Party’s foreign policy agenda. The prime minister has put significant effort into lobbying Caribbean and African countries in particular.

Readouts from the prime minister’s office in recent days show Trudeau working the phones to reach out to leaders in Saint Kitts and Nevis, Angola, Pakistan, Mexico, and India, among others countries in the campaign’s final push.
SEYLLOU VIA GETTY IMAGES

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri at the "Door of the Journey of No Return" at the Goree Slave House during a visit to Senegal on Goree Island off the coast of Dakar on Feb. 12, 2020.

Earlier this year, Trudeau embarked on a tour of Ethiopia and Senegal to boost Canada’s Security Council bid. Former prime minister Joe Clark was also recruited to help add some clout to the campaign. But some analysts said that trip may have come too late.

Chapnick said Canada’s campaign — focused on strengthening multilateralism, economic security, gender equality, peace, and action on climate change — isn’t much different from what Ireland or Norway are pitching.

But Canada is the best connected of the three countries in a time when multilateralism is struggling, Chapnick said.

He pointed to Canada being a member of the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, and the G7 and G20. “We are better placed to bring more countries together.”

But as long as COVID-19 remains a pandemic, the nature of having a seat in the UN’s most powerful body will look and likely feel different.
POOL VIA GETTY IMAGES

A view of members taking part on screen during an emergency G20 virtual summit to discuss the coronavirus crisis on March 26, 2020.

Like many workplaces around the world adjusting their workflows to the coronavirus pandemic, the Security Council has moved its meetings online. It’s a trend that will likely continue until an effective vaccine for COVID-19 comes to market.

Despite the fact that ambassadors are currently not physically sitting next to each other every day, Chapnick said there’s still diplomatic value in having a seat on the council.

“We’re really struggling to negotiate with the Chinese, the release of the two Michaels,” he said, referring to the two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig who have been detained in China since December 2018. “It couldn’t hurt to have a seat beside a major Chinese diplomat every day for two years at the Security Council.”

Of course, rubbing physical shoulders with someone is currently verboten from a public health perspective. It’s too early to say if the loss of small talk and in-person access between diplomats will remedy or exacerbate the UN body’s current dysfunction.

Members can always take their interactions to private digital rooms, Chapnick said, emphasizing opportunity in a time of scarce interpersonal interactions. “You may have fewer interactions, but those interactions are likely to be more serious and deeper.”

With files from The Canadian Press

https://soundcloud.com/huffpost-follow-up/31-canada-aches-for-redemption-at-the-united-nations

India, Mexico, Norway, Ireland elected to UN Security Council

POOL/AFP/File / Stephane LEMOUTONThe UN Security Council room seen in 2017

The UN General Assembly elected on Wednesday four new members of the Security Council for 2021 and 2022, with Canada losing out again and the battle for the African seat going to a second round.

India, Mexico, Norway and Ireland were chosen as non-permanent members, while Djibouti and Kenya -- both of which failed to receive the two-thirds vote majority required to win -- will go to a second round of voting on Thursday.

Canada was beaten once again for one of the Western seats, by Ireland and Norway, despite a long and star-studded campaign, a result likely to be a blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In the Asia-Pacific region, India -- which has been trying unsuccessfully to win a permanent seat in an expanded Security Council -- ran unopposed to win 184 votes out of the 192 countries that participated in the election.

The result means that India will now have a seat at the same table as China, just days after the two nations disputed their Himalayan border, trading blame for a brawl that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead.

Mexico, which also ran unopposed, earned 187 votes.

African nations have in the past picked their own candidate but were unable to put forward a single country this time. Kenya received 113 votes against Djibouti, which got 78.

Kenya boasts of enjoying the support of the African Union, but Djibouti says it should have the seat due to Nairobi's past participation on the Security Council and the principle of rotation.

French-speaking Djibouti and English-speaking Kenya are both highlighting their roles in seeking peace on the Horn of Africa, as well as their contributions to UN peacekeeping options.

Kenya has pointed to its welcome to refugees from Somalia and South Sudan, as well as to its support to the two countries' fragile governments.

Djibouti, in turn, notes its strategic location and unusual role as a defense base for diverse countries -- France, the United States, China and Japan -- as well as its contributions in Somalia.

For Europe and the Western seats, the competition was more customary.

Canada -- already stung by a defeat in 2010 during its last bid for the Security Council, when the General Assembly chose Portugal instead -- was dominated by Norway, with 130 votes, and Ireland, which had 128, the minimum number required to win.

Trudeau had invested heavily in the latest Security Council effort, with the defeat potentially causing him political embarrassment at home.

"As we move forward, we remain committed to the goals and principles that we laid out during this campaign," Trudeau said in a statement, adding that Canada would "continue to play a vital role in advancing global cooperation and building a more peaceful, inclusive and sustainable world."

- Celine Dion vs Bono -

Getty Images North America/Getty Images/AFP/File / Michael NagleU2 frontman Bono visits the United Nations in 2008

Hoping to woo delegates, both Canada and Ireland had wielded star power: Celine Dion sang in New York City to promote Canada at the UN, while U2 performed a concert in the Big Apple for Ireland.

"Campaigning for a UNSC seat involves endless lobbying, entertaining and worrying that the ambassador who just promised you a vote is a liar," tweeted Richard Gowan, an expert on the world body at the International Crisis Group.

Fearing fraud or manipulation, the General Assembly did not vote electronically, even though the United Nations is mostly operating virtually until the end of July due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, each of the 193 delegations had a chance to cast a secret ballot at a designated time scattered throughout the day in the famous Assembly Hall. Each new Security Council member needed to win two-thirds of the votes cast.

The Security Council has 10 non-permanent members in addition to the veto-wielding Big Five -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The General Assembly also elected Turkish diplomat Volkan Bozkir as its president for the 2020-21 session on Wednesday.

Bozkir was the only candidate running, but Armenia, Cyprus and Greece -- all of which have historically tense relations with Turkey -- opposed him, meaning he could not be elected by consensus and nations had to cast votes

Trump asked China's Xi for re-election help, claims Bolton
WHAT TRUMP ACCUSED BIDEN OF DOING IN CHINA HE IS GUILTY OF HIMSELF


AFP/File / Jim WATSON, PETER KLAUNZERUS

 President Donald Trump asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for help winning the 2020 election, a new book by former adviser John Bolton alleges

Donald Trump pleaded with China's leader Xi Jinping for help to win re-election in 2020, the US president's former national security advisor John Bolton writes in an explosive new behind-the-scenes book, according to excerpts published Wednesday.


Bolton alleges in a blistering critique that Trump's focus on winning a second term was the driving principle of his foreign policy -- and that top aides routinely disparaged the Republican leader for his ignorance of basic geopolitical facts.


In excerpts published by The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Bolton also claims Trump repeatedly showed a readiness to overlook Chinese human rights abuses -- most strikingly telling Xi the mass internment of Uighur Muslims was "exactly the right thing to do."


"I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasn't driven by reelection calculations," Bolton writes of the real estate magnate turned president, who was impeached in December for seeking dirt from Ukraine on his 2020 Democratic election rival Joe Biden.


In a key meeting with Xi last June, Trump "stunningly turned the conversation to the US presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win," Bolton claims in his upcoming tell-all.


Bolton writes that Trump stressed the importance of US farmers and how "increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat" could impact the US electoral outcome.


"I would print Trump's exact words but the government's prepublication review process has decided otherwise," Bolton says, referring to the requirement months ago that he have his manuscript vetted by US agencies.


In a sign of Trump's anger over the memoir, the Justice Department filed an emergency order late Wednesday seeking a halt to publication, the second time in as many days it has tried to block the book.


Arguing that Bolton failed to allow completion of the vetting, the department urged the court to take action to "prevent the harm to national security that will result if his manuscript is published to the world."


Bolton "broke the law" by divulging "highly classified information," Trump said in a late Wednesday interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.


He also derided his former advisor, a veteran Washington insider, as "washed up," and mocked Bolton's past support for the US war in Iraq.


In the released excerpts Bolton said that by intervening in cases involving major firms in China and Turkey, Trump appeared to "give personal favors to dictators he liked."


He describes "obstruction of justice as a way of life" in the White House, and says he reported his concerns to Attorney General William Barr.


- 'Morally repugnant' -


The bombshell book, "The Room Where It Happened," is due for release next Tuesday, in the thick of a presidential campaign against Democrat Biden.








AFP/File / SAUL LOEB 

Former national security advisor John Bolton (L) makes a series of startling allegations against US President Donald Trump in his new behind-the-scenes memoir about his time at the White House

The former vice president said that Bolton's revelations show Trump "sold out the American people to protect his political future."


"If these accounts are true, it's not only morally repugnant, it's a violation of Donald Trump's sacred duty to the American people to protect America's interests and defend our values."


The conservative Bolton, himself a controversial figure in US politics, spent 17 turbulent months in the White House before resigning last September.


He declined to testify during the December impeachment process in the House of Representatives, then said in January he would testify in the Senate trial if he were issued a subpoena.


Senate Republicans blocked such an effort by Democrats.


Bolton did not explicitly say whether Trump's newly revealed actions amounted to impeachable conduct but argued that the House should have investigated them.


He also said Democrats committed "impeachment malpractice" by limiting their inquiry to "the Ukraine aspects of Trump's confusion of his personal interests."


Had they looked more widely, Democrats might have persuaded Republicans and other Americans that "high crimes and misdemeanors" had been perpetrated, he wrote.


- World's 'most dangerous' man? -


Bolton depicts a chaotic White House in which even seemingly loyal top aides mocked the president -- while Trump himself allegedly ignores basic facts such as Finland being distinct from Russia.


During Trump's 2018 summit with North Korea's leader, according to excerpts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slipped Bolton a note maligning the president, saying "He is so full of shit."


Several behind-the-scenes books have emerged in recent years alleging damning Trump details, but Bolton is the highest-ranking official to write one.


Another potentially damaging take looms, this time from within Trump's family.


The president's niece, Mary Trump, releases her memoir, featuring the scathing title "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," on July 28.


Trump has sought to halt the books, but constitutional experts told AFP it would be unlikely for courts to block their publication.

 

Rhodes will go - Oxford college backs statue removal

AFP/File / Adrian DENNISProtestors have called fo the removal of the statue of Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes, which looks down over Oxford's High Street

An Oxford University college has voted in favour of removing a statue of 19th-century colonialist Cecil Rhodes, less than two weeks after thousands of protestors called for it to be taken down.

Oriel College said it also wanted to set up an independent inquiry into the "key issues" surrounding the statue of the Victorian mining tycoon.

"Both of these decisions were reached after a thoughtful period of debate and reflection and with the full awareness of the impact these decisions are likely to have in Britain and around the world," it said in a statement Wednesday.

The move comes after a large protest by the Rhodes Must Fall campaign on June 9, with demonstrators chanting "Take it down!" and "Decolonise!"

The campaign to remove the statue, which started four years ago, was reignited by the global explosion of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, following the killing in the United States of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer.

Campaigners had also demanded changes to the Rhodes scholarship, which has been awarded to more than 8,000 overseas students to study at Oxford University, since 1902.

Rhodes -- a white supremacist like many builders of the British empire -- gave his name to the territories of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe and Zambia, and founded the De Beers diamond company.

He studied at Oxford and left money to Oriel College after his death in 1902.

Oriel's statement said it would examine how to improve access and attendance of Black Asian and minority ethnic undergraduate and graduate students.

The independent commission of inquiry would also review "how the college's 21st-century commitment to diversity can sit more easily with its past."

- Debate over colonial past -

Statues commemorating Britain's colonial past have become the focus of anger in recent weeks, most dramatically with the toppling of a memorial to the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

In addition, a London statue of British wartime leader Winston Churchill was controversially boxed up after anti-racism protests.

AFP/File / Adrian DENNISThe campaign to remove the statue was reinvigorated by the global explosion of Black Lives Matter demonstrations after the killing of George Floyd in the US

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign said it was cautiously optimistic after the college's announcement.

"However, we have been down this route before, where Oriel College has committed to taking a certain action, but has not followed through: notably, in 2015, when the college committed to engaging in a six-month-long democratic listening exercise," it said in a statement.

"Therefore, while we remain hopeful, our optimism is cautious," it said, urging the college to commit to removing the statue.

Susan Brown, the leader of Oxford City Council, said she welcomed the news from Oriel College and paid tribute to the campaigners.

"The city council would welcome an early submission of a formal planning application from Oriel to accompany the review process and feed into it," she said in a statement.

"I would like to pay particular tribute to the Rhodes Must Fall campaign who have seen their aims come a big step closer today, and also to Black Lives Matter campaigners who have reinvigorated this debate about our history and how it should be recognised."

Earlier on Wednesday, universities minister Michelle Donelan said she was opposed to removing the statue, calling it "short-sighted".

"Because if we cannot rewrite our history, instead what we should do is remember and learn from it," she told a Higher Education Policy Institute event, the PA Media news agency reported.

BUYS WEAPONS FROM RUSSIA DOES PUTIN'S BIDDING

Turkey still blocking defence plan for Poland, Baltics, NATO envoys say

Reuters•June 17, 2020 By Robin Emmott and John Irish

BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - Turkey continues to block a NATO defence plan for Poland and Baltic states despite a deal last year between Turkey's president and allied leaders, three allied diplomats and a French defence official said on Wednesday.

Diplomats said while Ankara has approved the plan, known as Eagle Defender, it has not allowed NATO military chiefs to put it into action.

The dispute, first reported by Reuters in November, is a sign that divisions remain between Ankara, Paris and Washington over Turkey's offensive last year in northern Syria and that frictions over broader NATO strategy have not been resolved.

The Turkish government did not immediately respond for request for comment. NATO defence ministers are due to meet later on Wednesday and Thursday via secure video call.

"Turkey is refusing to accept these plans unless we recognise the PYD/PKK as a terrorist entity," a French defence official said, referring to Syrian and Turkish Kurdish groups that Ankara regards as dangerous rebels.

"We say no. We need to show solidarity for eastern allies and it's not acceptable to block these plans," the official said.

At a NATO summit in December, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan agreed with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and other allied leaders to drop such demands.

Turkey began its offensive in northern Syria after the United States pulled 1,000 troops out of the area in October. Ankara's NATO allies have said the incursion undermines the battle against Islamic State militants.

The plan for the Baltic states and Poland, drawn up at their request after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, has no direct bearing on Turkey's strategy in Syria, but it raises issues about security on all of NATO's frontiers.

Under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's 1949 founding treaty, an attack on one ally is an attack on all, and the alliance has military strategies for collective defence across its territory.


(Reporting by Robin Emmott and John Irish; Editing by Giles Elgood)

ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS
Israel's Netanyahu mulls two-phase West Bank annexation, newspaper says
Reuters•June 17, 2020



Israel's Netanyahu mulls two-phase West Bank annexation, newspaper says
Houses are seen in the Jewish settlement of Itamar, near Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing a limited initial annexation in the occupied West Bank, hoping to quell international opposition to his pledge of wide territorial moves, an Israeli newspaper said on Wednesday.

Netanyahu has said a U.S. peace plan, which envisages Israel retaining its settlements in the West Bank, provides an "historic opportunity" to extend Israeli sovereignty to them and to the Jordan Valley area.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in a 1967 war. Palestinians hope to establish a state in those areas and say the peace blueprint announced by President Donald Trump in January kills that prospect.

Israel Hayom, a pro-Netanyahu daily widely seen as reflecting his views, said the right-wing leader was now looking at the possibility of annexation in two phases.

It said Netanyahu, who has set July 1 for the start of a cabinet debate on the issue, was considering annexing only small settlements in phase one and, after renewing calls to Palestinians for peace talks, then annexing the remaining ones.

Netanyahu's annexation pledges have raised stiff opposition from the Palestinians, Arab countries and European nations, and Israeli officials say Washington has yet to agree to the move.

Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said potential phasing of annexation made no difference. "Netanyahu is trying to confuse the international position which rejects annexation and the world will not be fooled by such a proposition," he said.

The newspaper said Netanyahu does not anticipate a strong punitive response from Europe for annexation, despite vocal opposition, nor does he see it as substantially damaging Israel's ties with the Arab world.

Nonetheless, by limiting annexation initially, he hopes to signal that Israel is attentive to international criticism, Israel Hayom said.

It attributed its report to sources that have held discussions with Netanyahu in the last few days, but did not identify them. Netanyahu's office declined to comment.

Most countries view Israeli settlements in occupied territory as illegal. 

Israel rejects this.


(Reporting by Maayan Lubell and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Andrew Cawthorne)

UAE official: Israel annexation may draw calls for one state

ILAN BEN ZION,Associated Press•June 17, 2020

In this Feb. 20, 2020 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the area where a new neighborhood is to be built in the East Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa. A senior Emirati official warned Wednesday, June 17, 2020 that Israel's planned annexation of parts of the West Bank could lead Arab states to call for a single binational state for Israelis and Palestinians. (Debbie Hill/Pool Photo via AP, File)


JERUSALEM (AP) — A senior Emirati official warned Wednesday that Israel's planned annexation of parts of the West Bank could lead Arab states to call for a single bi-national state for Israelis and Palestinians.

The Arab minister’s remarks, delivered to an influential Washington think tank, struck a new setback to Israel's hopes of normalizing relations with the Arab world and added to the increasingly vocal international opposition to the Israeli annexation plan.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the strategically important Jordan Valley. Such a unilateral move would dash Palestinian hopes of establishing a viable independent state.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to nearly 500,000 Israelis. The Palestinians seek the territory as the heartland of their future state. Most of the international community considers Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal under international law.

Anwar Gargash, the United Arab Emirates's minister of state for foreign affairs, told the Washington-based Middle East Institute that his country is committed to dialog and the two-state solution to the decades-long conflict. But he added that “ultimately, I personally believe that if we are going where we are going today, and we lose the possibility of really implementing a two-state solution, we will really be talking about equal rights and one state."

A binational state of Israelis and Palestinians would mean an end to Israel's goal of being a democracy with a solid Jewish majority.

Israel has cultivated close, but clandestine, ties with several Arab states, including the UAE, because of their shared concern about Iran. Those warming relations have manifested themselves publicly with Israeli ministers visiting the UAE, Israeli athletes attending sports events and some quiet business ties.

Israel only has formal diplomatic relations with Egypt and Jordan, which also have both strongly criticized the annexation plan.

On Tuesday, Gargash told the American Jewish Committee that “the UAE is clearly against any annexation as being proposed by the current Israeli government.”

Last Friday, Yousef Al Otaiba, the Gulf state's ambassador to the U.S., published an editorial in a leading Israeli newspaper warning that annexation of occupied territory would “upend” Israel’s efforts to improve ties with Arab countries.

Also on Wednesday, Gargash said “less than 100” Emirati soldiers remain in Yemen amid a Saudi-led war on the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels that hold the capital, Sanaa.

The UAE began to withdraw in July 2019 from the yearslong war in the Arab world’s poorest nation amid international criticism of a campaign that saw airstrikes kill civilians and prisoners tortured.

TRUMP PURGES VOICE OF AMERICA
Trump-appointed chief of U.S. global broadcasting fires agency heads in major reshuffle

Head of Radio Free Europe among those fired; Voice of America director quit Monday

Published: June 17, 2020 By Associated Press

The Voice of America building Monday in Washington. ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The new chief of U.S.-funded international broadcasting on Wednesday fired the heads of at least three outlets he oversees and replaced their boards with allies, in a move likely to raise fears that he intends to turn the Voice of America and its sister outlets into Trump administration propaganda machines.

U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack informed those he dismissed in email notices sent late Wednesday just hours after he had sought to play down those concerns in an email to staff saying he is committed to ensuring the independence of the broadcasters who are charged with delivering independent news and information to audiences around the world.

Two congressional aides said that among those removed from their positions were the head of Radio Free Asia, Bay Fang, the head of Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Jamie Fly, and the head of the Middle East Broadcasting Network, Alberto Fernandez. The director and deputy director of the Voice of America, Amanda Bennett and Sandy Sugawara, had resigned from their positions on Monday.

Pack, a conservative filmmaker and one-time associate of President Donald Trump’s former political adviser Steve Bannon, said in a notices to those fired that he was taking the step consistent with his authority as the new CEO of the overall agency. It gave no reason for his decision.

He added in the notices that he expected the agency’s new board of directors, chaired by himself, to approve the decision. In a separate message, Pack also announced that he had removed all the current members of the broadcasters’ respective boards and installed his own team, with officials from various agencies, including the Office of Management and Budget and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The firings came after Pack had tried to allay mounting concerns about his intentions at the agency in an email to staff in which he said he is “committed to maintaining the agency’s independence and adhering to VOA’s charter and the principles.”

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, denounced the firings as an “egregious breach” of the agency’s mission. Menendez had led an unsuccessful fight to block or at least delay Pack’s confirmation.

“As feared, Michael Pack has confirmed he is on a political mission to destroy the USAGM’s independence and undermine its historic role,” Menendez said. “The wholesale firing of the agency’s network heads, and disbanding of corporate boards to install President Trump’s political allies is an egregious breach of this organization’s history and mission from which it may never recover.”

VOA had come under severe criticism from Trump and his supporters for its reporting on China and the coronavirus pandemic, and the resignations came as Trump made clear he wanted a change in VOA’s leadership.

Pack began his role just last week after a contentious Senate confirmation process during which Democrats questioned his fitness for the post.
“I am fully committed to honoring VOA’s charter, the missions of the grantees, and the independence of our heroic journalists around the world,” Pack wrote in the email.

“I think we all agree the agency has an important mission, and we are being called on to perform it at an historically important time,” he said. “My goal is to provide leadership that will help each of you further that mission.”

That mission has been made more critical as “America’s adversaries have stepped up their propaganda and disinformation efforts. They are aggressively promoting their very different visions of the world,” he wrote.

Pack had previously worked for the agency under earlier incarnations as well as the PBS parent Corporation for Public Broadcasting and reminded his new employees of those experiences during which he said he had “learned the importance of building a team that works toward a common purpose.”

Pack said his first priority is to raise employee morale, which has taken a hit in recent months with attacks from the White House and came to a head on Monday when VOA Director Bennett and her deputy announced their resignations, saying that Pack is entitled to have people of his choice in important positions.

Trump and his supporters have been sharply critical of coronavirus reporting by the outlet that ran counter to the administration narrative on China’s response to the outbreak. The White House went so far as to blast VOA in a press statement and directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to not cooperate with its journalists, an unusual attack on a venerable organization that has sought to be an objective source of news despite its government ties.

While not unexpected, the departures of Bennett and Sugawara sparked fears of a significant purge of U.S. Agency for Global Media management. Late Tuesday, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., warned Pack publicly against targeting career officials.
“My fear is that USAGM’s role as an unbiased news organization is in jeopardy under (Pack’s) leadership,” Engel said in a statement. “USAGM’s mission is ‘to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy’ — not to be a mouthpiece for the president in the run up to an election ... And Mr. Pack needs to understand that USAGM is not the Ministry of Information.”

CHLORINATED CHICKEN 
US-European trade talks stalled over 'unsafe' American food

AFP•June 17, 2020

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, pictured testifying on Capitol Hill on June 17, 2020, dismissed concerns over food standards as "thinly veiled protectionism" (AFP Photo/POOL)More

Washington (AFP) - US trade talks with the European Union and Britain have stalled in part due to suspicions of poor American food standards, Washington's chief negotiator said Wednesday.

"I think there's a desire to make things work through, but for whatever reason we haven't made much headway," US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"There is a sense in Europe, which I think is shared -- hopefully not as deeply with (Britain) as it is with Europe -- that American food is unsafe."

He dismissed the worries however as "thinly veiled protectionism."

These are "very difficult issues with Europe and they will be very difficult issues with the United Kingdom. Also I'm hopeful ... that we'll work our way through them."

Lighthizer claimed that the United States "has the best agriculture in the world" as well as "the safest, highest standards.

"I think we shouldn't confuse science with consumer preference," he said.

He said agriculture had been at the center of all recent trade negotiations and was "a huge, huge winner" for Americans in the new United States-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement (USMCA), and also in agreements reached with China and Japan.

With Britain, however, "we will have agricultural problems" in negotiations, he warned.

Lighthizer vowed that there would be no compromise regarding US agricultural exports.

"We either have a fair access for agriculture or won't have to deal with either one of them," he said.

US-EU trade talks have been stalled for months, locked in disputes over subsidies to Boeing and Airbus and digital taxation as well as agriculture.

In early May, Britain and the United States began negotiations for an "ambitious" free trade agreement to be implemented after the post-Brexit transition period at the end of the year.

High British taxes on the US tech sector is also a sore point in talks.

President Donald Trump is seeking a sweeping trade agreement, Lighthizer said.

THE POLITICS OF GRIEVANCE

As U.S. walks away from talks on digital services tax, Lighthizer says other nations were aiming to ‘screw America’

Published: June 17, 2020 By Victor Reklaitis

Democratic congressman says: ‘My concern is that the administration is about to start another trade war’

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer testifies at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Wednesday.

‘I agree completely with what we did at the OECD. The reality was they all came together and agreed that they’d screw America, and that’s just not something that we’re ever going to be a part of.’— U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer

Those comments came Wednesday from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, as he discussed the latest twist in a long-running fight over taxes on digital services.

President Donald Trump has previously threatened what he called “substantial reciprocal action” for such taxes in France and other countries, suggesting the U.S. could slap tariffs on French wine.

France had accepted a delay for the taxes on tech giants such as Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.98% on the condition that a deal be achieved on the issue within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But while Lighthizer on Wednesday said there is “clearly room for a negotiated settlement,” the trade representative added that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently made the decision to suspend talks. Mnuchin reportedly told his counterparts in other countries that negotiations are at an impasse.

Read more:Tech giants face global push for digital taxes

Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas grilled Lighthizer on the issue during the hearing, which focused on the Trump administration’s trade policies and was followed later Wednesday by a similar hearing before the Senate Finance Committee.

“The better solution is an international agreement that determines how digital-service companies are taxed,” Doggett said. “My concern is that the administration is about to start another trade war of the type that we have found damaging in the past.”

‘Cooped-up’ millennial traders have sparked a new pandemic — it won’t end well, warns Princeton economist

Published: June 17, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

There's a whole new breed of trader out there. GETTY

‘Don’t confuse day traders with serious investors. Serious investing involves broad diversification, rebalancing, active tax management, avoiding market timing, staying the course, and the use of investment instruments such as ETFs with very low fees... Don’t be misled with false claims of easy profits from day trading.’

That’s Burton G. Malkiel, Princeton economist and Wealthfront’s Chief Investment Officer, sharing his thoughts Wednesday on what he describes as “the day-trading pandemic.”

Malkiel, who wrote the widely read investment book, “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” blamed a sudden surge of inexperienced traders on the new reality facing the younger generation.

“The coronavirus has wrought devastating harm to the health of our nation and to the vibrancy of our economy,” he wrote. “With respect to financial markets, it has also given rise to a full-blown mania. Individuals, cooped up at home, working remotely on flexible schedules, with no social activities and no live sports to watch and bet on, have increasingly turned to day trading in the stock market.”

Malkiel explained that millennials and members of Gen Z, lured in by low-cost fintech firms like Robinhood, have led to the extreme volatility in stock prices. He cited two of the most popular stocks on Robinhood’s trading platform as examples of the kind of risk that these traders are fine with taking: FANGDD Network Group DUO, -1.86% , a Chinese online real-estate company, and Hertz HTZ, +2.56% , the bankrupt rental-car giant. Both have been all over the map.


Billionaire Leon Cooperman agrees with Malkiel’s stance. The “Robinhood markets are going to end in tears,” he said during CNBC’s show “Halftime Report” on Monday.


Lately, mom-and-pop investors have outperformed pros like Cooperman and mutual funds, according to a research report from Goldman Sachs GS, -1.62% .


But how long can that last?

Malkiel cited several longer-range studies that show how poorly these active traders tend to do in the stock market. One from the University of California showed that individual traders on the Charles Schwab trading platform substantially underperformed the market over a six-year period. In fact, the more they traded during the period, the more they lagged the index funds.

A more recent study out of Brazil showed that only 3% of day traders actually managed to turn a profit, and less than 1% made more than the Brazilian minimum wage.

Read: Trader commits suicide after racking up more than $700,000 in debt

“I have no argument with those who like to gamble,” Malkiel wrote. “But legions of new day traders have poured new money into stocks without a care for the risks involved, clearly unaware of Buffett’s maxim that ‘It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.’”

At last check Wednesday, stocks were looking at another positive trading session following the prior week’s freefall, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.64% , S&P 500 SPX, -0.36% and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.14% all inching higher.